Black Noir

In America we generally divide ourselves along two very specific lines. That is, we traditionally group ourselves up by class and race/ethnicity. If you are poor and black, for example, you will feel like you share almost no common experiences with someone who is rich and white. This is easy for us to understand as these two people would have no common ground along the two great American divisors, as I call them. The question arises, then, what about when two people share one of these things in common? Which divisor holds more weight – class or race/ethnicity? Does a rich black person have more in common with a poor black person or a rich white person? While the question may seem tasteless, I think that it is exactly what Dorothy B. Hughes is exploring in her novel The Expendable Man.

As we discussed in class, the entire purpose of this class is to take the classical racial and moral ambiguity of noir and thrust it on to the main stage. By construction, this means that the books we read will have race playing a major role in them. In If He Hollers Let Him Go, race was so central to the plot that it would be impossible to imagine any similar story without it, and while class was part of the story, it was not the main operator. Hughes, however, brings class much more in focus alongside race. Simply from a chronological standpoint, the book immediately makes clear what the class of Hugh Denismore is and how it contrasts to the class of Iris Croom (aka Bonnie Lee Crumb). While potential signals are given for what race each belongs to, nothing explicit is mentioned until the plot has already gotten well underway. Such an order of operations seems absolutely deliberate, and I believe that it may signal Hughes’s belief that class is a larger divisor in America than race is.

Whether someone is apt to agree with this assessment is largely based on personal experience, and writing in the 1960s would certainly not lend itself to the idea that class mattered more than race. With that said, I think that today in America (at least in the area that I know best) class really does play a bigger role in dividing us than race does. While there is no question that this is a debatable claim, I am interested to see how both aspects of American life play out in this book and the books moving forward. I think I would be very interested in writing about this for my larger paper towards the end of the semester.

Although it seems simple, defining justice has always been a contentious issue in the United States. Some define justice as a set of rights and laws that all citizens are entitled to; it is upheld by the rule of law and the people who have sworn an oath to defend it. Others consider justice to be a constant push and pull between the dark and the light, each balancing out the other in a system that is already pre-determined. The protagonists of noir descend into the darkness of the world, playing with but never becoming completely caught in the shadows of the underworld. Yet Hugh only descends further into darkness despite seeking the light in Dorothy Hughes’s The Expendable Man. 

While many works of noir employ visual and moral blackness that culminates in double-sided racism, Hughes covertly forces the reader to discern between their preconceived notions of justice and race. After the newspapers release an article confirming Iris’s death, Hugh dares not come forward to identify the young teenager’s body because it would pose too great of threat to his own wellbeing. Not only that, but Hugh knows that he would not be believed (Hughes 44). In attempting to navigate the segregated society of the United States in 1963, Hugh realizes that he is forced to choose between pre-imposed moral codes that were formed to visually and morally discern between the races. It may not have been completely clear to a reader of that time period that Hugh is black as he is portrayed as a concerned citizen; the noir novels of the time often intertwined physical darkness with moral darkness.Despite this, Hugh is determined to maintain his moral code and ascend into the light. “If he were to emerge from this grim geste unharmed, he must walk through it the same man who walked into it. He, Dr. Hugh Densmore, product of his heredity and environment, sufficiently intelligent and well adjusted to his mind and body and color and ambition” (Hughes 63). The privileges that Hugh’s class has afforded him have instilled a sense of pride in both his heritage and his moral code. He is part of the black burgeoisie class. Yet the harder he tries to ascend into the light, the more darkness he seems to be shrouded by.

In an article from the Journal of Film and Video entitled “The Lethal Femme Fatale in the Noir Tradition,” Jack Boozer writes: “… the femme fatale of the 1940s is a timely indicator of wartime misgivings about sex roles, marriage, and sexuality” (20). These misgivings are apparent in If He Hollers Let Him Go, as Bob’s interactions with multiple women expose a perspective towards the feminine steeped in these “wartime misgivings,” misgivings predicated upon an increased sense of power and agency afforded to women out of wartime need. This increase of power is interpreted by Bob, a working class Black man, as an encroachment, insult, and danger, given his place in society based on the contemporary racial paradigm.

At the beginning of the novel, we’re introduced to one of Bob’s housemates, a married woman named Ella Mae, with whom he’s been having a casual affair. Ella Mae is a Black housewife with a newborn who seems to have genuine, if not complicated, feelings for Bob. Her presence in the novel serves several purposes, especially at its start. First, she represents the ideal or traditional woman within Bob’s worldview: a woman defined by her roles as a mother, a wife, and a sexual partner. Second, she nurtures and feeds into Bob’s masculinity, providing this particular Black man with a Black woman over whom he can feel superior. In the context of a shifting social order around World War II, Ella Mae might represent the ideal, pre-World War II idea of Black womanhood preferred by Black men in Bob’s position.

Madge, a white woman from the south, is able to exert her power and influence over Bob in the workplace, despite Bob having a role above her. The racism inherent to society at-large elevates her status above Bob. Their workplace itself embodies a sense of the masculine, a repairship at a Navy dockyard, yet Bob’s blackness overrides his masculinity when confronted by Madge’s white femininity. The result is an emasculation unique to the shifting social order created in California around World War II.

In the previous two books we read, there is an explicit depiction of the “ideal.” Between the handsome and cool anti-hero or the pure yet sexualized femme fatale, each book had characters or plots that set a standard of aspiration. However, in If He Hollers, Let Him Go, we are immediately immersed in the darkness of Bob’s world. The presence of the ideal is still present but is just exhibited differently. Instead of being on the side of the idealistic characters such as Sam Spade who attempts to save the day with his quick intelligence and smooth wit, the readers are exposed to the characters on the other side that are striving to become the “ideal”. This new perspective helped me to understand noir better because I gained a more encompassing view of what descending into the darkness really meant.

Upon our introduction to Bob, he admits it is “hard enough each day just to keep on living” (4). Right away, we know he is struggling. As we read, Bob’s gaze on reality becomes more and more confusing to not only himself but also to us readers because he becomes so obsessed with finding the manhood that is robbed from him as a black man. Constant gaslighting causes Bob to question everything, making him somewhat of an unreliable narrator. This chaos and confusion, within his mind, is the darkness we do not see in The Maltese Falcon and Farewell, My Lovely because these books are both centered around white characters. If He Hollers, Let Him Go shines a spotlight on the darkness. As we have discussed in class, this darkness is where the terrors and dangers of racism and paranoia hide. However, the book calls attention to this darkness, forcing the reader to contemplate it.

Throughout time, people have been hesitant to talk about scandalous subjects such as race. By writing from the black person’s point of view, If He Hollers, Let Him Go redefines the noir characteristic of idealism. Bob is honest beyond a doubt, which can be uncomfortable for a lot of people. However, his presentation of darkness and the unideal further defines what the noir ideal is, the reality that Bob constantly craves. Additionally, characters like Alice represent those on the margins who can straddle the line between light and darkness. She acts as a comparison within herself by putting on white person mask and becoming one with the ideal or taking off the mask and hiding her flaws in the dark.

Between the three books we have read, each one’s inclusion of the contrast between dark and light strengthens the concept more and more. Without the comparison, we lose the context of the other, which is why it is essential that noir as a genre includes both.

                  The power struggle seen within If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes speaks to the limited social mobility within marginalized communities that pervades even modern society. While Bob focuses on the materialism of Los Angeles as an indicator of status, he also looks to make gains socially over his peers. Bob feels completely emasculated in his society; therefore, he looks to distinguish himself from women. When he felt Alice had gained power over him, he slapped her in an attempt to retrieve that power. Alice also seeks to make these gains in her desire to “go slumming,” as it allows her to feel powerful over her darker-skinned peers. However, these small gains in power can easily be lost by moving to a more white male-dominated crowd or by other grabs of power by their peers. In the end, social mobility remains limited.

                  In The Making of a Teenage Service Class: Poverty and Mobility in an American City by Ranita Ray, she investigates the way in which lower-income communities face structural violence and inflammatory labels like “at-risk youth” that prevent them from elevating their economic status. As such they seek out social distinctions that make them feel as though they have gained some footing, but family crises, unemployment, and other results of the uncertainty of their lives cause significant setback. Therefore, they relish every small gain. Ray brought some of the youth to a sushi restaurant, and because sushi had the ability to elevate them over their peers who only ate fast food, the teenagers posted pictures of it all over Facebook, disregarding the fact that they frequently rely on fast food as well due to living in a food swamp. Himes and Ray reveal that little has changed throughout the past several decades. The small gains amount to little in a society that limits mobility, but it does not prevent the attempt and the desire to distinguish oneself in a society that claims everyone can have a piece of the American Dream.

I was recently rereading the syllabus as I was checking the reading schedule and noticed something in the course description that has a new meaning to me after reading three novels in this class. It is said that we will look at “how the noir genre is altered when “noirs” are the subjects and the authors.” This helped me put into words the feeling that I was getting when reading If He Hollers Let Him Go in the context of our noir-focused class.

In reading this novel, I was unable to understand how it was that this might fit into noir as neatly as the previous two did. It was not simply the lack of a detective – which I realize does not define noir – that threw me off and challenged me to find links between this novel and the previous two. The aspects of noir that we talked about as the main characters would descend into darkness and operate on the margins of society did not seem to be operating in Himes’s novel.

Reading the description on the syllabus about the rationale for the inclusion of certain books, I have gained a new appreciation for how this book is noir. I think that Bob and Himes are both individually noir. First of all, Himes wrote this novel while in jail. As a convicted criminal, he clearly operated on the margin of society even if that’s not actually how he grew up. Likewise, Bob is a marginalized figure who, while he does not descend into darkness, lives in darkness nonetheless.

Since focusing on the noir within the characters themselves and the author who wrote the characters, I have been able to better understand how this book fits into the larger curriculum of the course. That is not to say that there is no more overarching feeling of noir from the book, but I think this new perspective has given be a different angle from which I can investigate noir as a whole.

Power and authority are two important elements in the world Chester Himes has created. We can see power and authority in an institutional sense with the role of police officers or even the relationship between Bob and the shipyard manager. Power is also on display within society. The power dynamic between genders as well as between people of different races reveals that the way in which people interact and are perceived is influenced by power. As a political science major, I could not help but notice how much this display of power aligns with the theory of Michel Foucault.

While there are many theories on power, Michel Foucault explains power to be like a chain-linked web, one on which we can act and use power, while power can simultaneously act on us as well. Seeing power being used causes a person to be caught in the web of power and therefore influences them to exert power themselves. Bob is a perfect example of someone who gets caught in this web of power.

Power is something that is central to Bob and how he sees the world. When looking at examples such as when the cops pulled over him and Alice, or instances with the shipyard manager, power is being exerted against Bob in a discriminatory way, and both seeing and experiencing this power used on him, influences Bob to want to use power as well, in a way of regaining his agency.

We can see this in his interactions with women, especially with Alice. When Alice and Bob were hanging out with Alice’s friends after the cop incident, Bob slaps Alice when she was with Stella: “She gave me a look of raw hatred. I’d slap her before I knew it” (67).   Bob’s need to assert his power over others is a product of the discrimination he has experienced in the United States as a black man. The extra layer of complexity to this display of power as a web is that anyone can have access to it. This is evident in the relationship between Bob and white women. Bob feels that he can exert power over white women, as a man; however, white women also have access to this power as well. As both belong to groups that have been discriminated against in some way and have power used against them, they can be seen as trying to gain agency back by exerting power themselves.

Looking at this complex relationship through a Foucauldian lens, the world that Himes has depicted is one in which everyone is trying to use power in order to reestablish the sense of agency that has been taken from them; however, using the tools of their oppressors to essentially do the same thing, pushes them further in this descent into darkness.

The Femme Fatale is a character that started appearing on the silver screen during the 1940s. However, the characteristics of the Femme Fatale (beauty, destructive, seductress, temptress, leading the main character to a trap) have been around since ancient stories like Genesis. The Femme Fatale has evolved over time to keep up with the times. In the books that we have read so far regarding the Noir genre, I would argue that in the book If He Hollers Let Him Go, the femme fatale has changed her approach to achieving what she wants, but still holds on to the characteristics of the archetype.
What do I mean by changing her approach? Well if we take a look at Maltese Falcons’ Bridget O’Shagnessy and Farewell My Lovely’s Velma both characters were introduced to the main character by asking him for help. Bridget wanted help by having a private investigation, and Velma wanted help in finding her jade necklace. Both of these characters utilize their feminine allure, to attract the main character. Now if we take a look at the first introduction to Madge in If He Hollers Let Him Go, it is evident that she takes pleasure in making Bob’s life difficult, and contrary Bob is the one who has to ask Madge for help when he needed a tacker. What makes Madge so different from Velma and Bridget is that her character is not a woman that is taking advantage of the patriarchy to get what she wants, she is taking advantage of the next best thing – her race. Bob is aware of this, he states, “I was used to white woman doing all sorts of things to tease or annoy the coloured men…”(Himes,19)
Madge is not the typical femme fatale that we have read so far in, class but she still poses a threat and traps the main character like the femme fatale archetype. Why is this? One thing is that this book is told from a black man’s perspective while the other noir books are told from a white man’s. The white men have nothing to fear like Bob does because they are on top of the food chain while Bob is at the bottom. He can see the threat for what it is and unlike Marlow and Spade, he has a lot to lose and an actual chance to lose it.

As I closed the pages of our third novel, I began thinking about how Chester Himes’ book fits alongside the others. There is no murder, no detective, and no mystery to solve. Instead, “If He Hollers Let Him Go” is a sobering tale of racism in America in the first half of the 20th century. 

Upon pondering Bob Jones’ story and wondering how he fits in with Spade and Marlowe, I formed a conclusion. I believe that the general thesis of the noir genre is this: When the “other” attempts to accomplish what only the white man can, there is disorientation, violence, and the order of society is disturbed. 

I also fully acknowledge  that I will develop this thesis as we continue reading other texts, but believe that the three novels we read imply that when blackness strives to be white and when the “other” reaches for things that are out of their place, society crumbles. The “other,” here, is associated with blackness, or “noir.” This blackness can come in the form of actual black people such as Bob Jones, femininity, queerness, or foreign peoples from places such as the Orient or Greece. 

When Joel Cairo and Brigid O’Shaughnnessy attempt to steal something that belongs to a white man, they reach for something they cannot control and are not able to possess. As a result of Brigid being in over her head, and ends up killing Miles, and Cairo gets beaten up. As feminine creatures, neither of them are equipped for what it would truly take to steal from a white man, and in their attempt to accomplish what is impossible for people of their kind, they disrupt the order of society, and white men (specifically Miles) suffer. 

When Velma tries to concoct a plan that will erase the sins of her past, she not only ends up killing a man, but does so unsuccessfully, ultimately leading to her exposure, and later, her death. Just like Brigid, Velma is in over her head, trying to play games in a white man’s world. She takes the life of a white man, but isn’t smart enough to cover up her tracks well enough that someone with real power (i.e., a white man like Philip Marlowe) won’t be able to figure her out. 

 And then comes Bob. Bob’s story to me was particularly interesting because I saw it as a sort of “spin off.” For so long, we were told the story of the “others” by those that are included–the rich white men. These men must clean up after the “other.” Through Bob, we see the struggles of a man who does not want to be othered. “I never get a chance to think like an ordinary guy,” Bob confesses, complaining that “white people make [him]] think about [his race] in every way” (Himes 168). 

It all comes down to blackness. 

Through Alice, we see the driving tone of noir texts; she argues that Bob must “adjust [his] way of thinking to the actual conditions of life,” and that if only he can  understand his place in society, life wouldn’t be nearly as difficult. Noir seeks to show the repercussions of those who do not understand their role in society, and shows how much freedom those at the top (the rich white men) truly have. 

This is tricky because through Bob’s story, we see a man who eventually tries to stay in his place and settle down, but still faces racism and othering by society. Perhaps, then, noir’s thesis should be refined to a much more grievous argument: If you exist within the realm of “blackness” and if you are an “other,” those with all the power–the rich white men–have full control over you.

Shocked would be an understatement for my initial feelings about the ending of this book. I think a more apt name for the book would be “If She Hollers, Let Him Go” because of the pure wretchedness of this ending. Even though Bob is not a very good man, the audience is rooting for a happy ending for him after experiencing the torture of his mind and the racism of society. The world he lives in is diametrically opposed to the very idea of his happiness, but it is hidden under the facade of a peaceful coexistence. The collective white society thinks of their actions against the black population as nothing but a game, while in reality, they are stripping the humanity from the lives of these oppressed people. Games become physically deadly for Bob when Madge pulls her final trick and locks him in the closet with her to cry rape. Here the gender roles are reversed in the most dignity stripping way because Madge is wrenching Bob’s manhood away from him in a twofold: by exercising her power over him and physically trapping him with her and overpowering him. She wins the game in horrifying fashion and almost gets Bob killed, locked away for 30 years, and throws his weakness in his face with only one word. 

The idea of Bob’s manliness is constantly intertwined with these different games being played by the different characters of the book. It is threatened by Alice’s relationship with Stella, by the mere presence of Tom Leighton, by the demotion from leaderman and subsequent loss of his job, and most prominently by the game of the Jim Crow laws. In the constant struggle for some semblance of control, Bob spirals deeper into this shattered perception of himself needing to feel like a man, but the game itself is stacked against allowing this perception to prevail. By trying to step out of his defined role in society, Bob is inviting these attacks on himself. Madge knows full well what kind of a man she was dealing with and adjusted her game accordingly. Even Alice knew what would threaten his masculinity best and brought him to her friends whose queer presence alone threatened his masculinity just like with Tom Leighton and his white male “superiority”. The problems of these games stem from the inherent racial bias, but most importantly the misconception that these actions are harmless. The book ends with the terrifying repercussions of Madge’s game, and our protagonist is shipped off to the army to die for his country that has done nothing for him in return. The game of life is a minefield when the game board is built for you to lose.