After Mumsfield confirms to Blanche that Aunt Emmeline has been replaced and presumably killed, Blanche\u2019s first course of action is to make a phone call to Archibald, the lawyer who witnessed and accepted the falsified signing of the will. \u201cHe had some stake in this, too. Her only other choice was to call the police. The idea of voluntarily putting herself in the hands of the sheriff\u2019s office didn\u2019t warrant a moment\u2019s thought. She went to the phone and dialed\u201d (179). In my initial reading of this passage, I allowed myself to forget the narrator\u2019s previous focus on Archibald and expected the next paragraph to lead into Blanche\u2019s phone call with the police, as if her self-sacrifice was her \u201conly choice,\u201d a moral act that \u201cdidn\u2019t warrant a moment\u2019s thought.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When thinking of Blanche on the Lam <\/em>as a work of noir fiction, it\u2019s useful to remember that this is a story about subverting figures within established systems of power. Like the protagonists of other novels that we\u2019ve read throughout the semester, Blanche as a noir heroine is tasked with seeking justice outside the boundaries of the established legal system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Blanche, as the title so plainly communicates, is on the lam from law enforcement after being sentenced to 30 days in prison for writing bad checks. From the very first page of the novel, the American legal system is challenged by Neely and our protagonist for its adoption of legal equality over equity; Blanche\u2019s difficult circumstances aren\u2019t taken into account during her sentencing. Beyond questions of equality and equity, Neely goes a step further, introducing race, class, and power into the story when Blanche makes her escape. Sitting on the toilet after her sentencing, Blanche fumes over her employers and the carelessness with which they wielded their power over her livelihood, the:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026so-called genteel Southern white women for whom she currently did day work\u2026 she\u2019d intended no crime. If four of her employers hadn\u2019t gone out of town without paying her, she\u2019d have had enough money in the bank to cover the checks (3-4). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon after, the matron accompanying Blanche to the court\u2019s restroom is distracted by the commotion caused by a county commissioner accused of taking bribes. \u201cShe was positive he wouldn\u2019t get thirty days. A little bad publicity, and a lot of sympathy from people who might easily be in his position, was about all he\u2019d get\u201d (4-5). Here, a man in an appointed political position is accused of a white-collar crime with effects more far-reaching than Blanche\u2019s bad checks; however, based on the assessment given by our narrator, he will face less severe punishment than Blanche punishment due to his higher, more powerful position in society. Though his race isn\u2019t explicitly stated, \u201cpeople who might easily be in his position\u201d suggests other politicians or people with power, which in 1990s rural North Carolina probably means white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being that this is a noir text, Blanche must seek avenues towards justice that skirt around the restrictive and at times corrupt boundaries of the law. By the time she calls Archibald, the sheriff has already been revealed as having involved himself in Grace and Everett\u2019s crimes. So, using her quick wits and knowledge of the corrupt figures around her, Blanche identifies a way in which she can manipulate\/pressure Archibald into helping her help Mumsfield in a way that helps himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, we must not forget: Blanche is a Black noir heroine. Where Sam Spade might cockily use law enforcement as a pool of bumbling, but useful tools, Blanche knows to be wary of white men in positions of power. \u201cNow she could only wait. It was a hard prescription. Waiting for some prime-aged white man to show up and set things right had the ring of guaranteed failure\u201d (180).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After Mumsfield confirms to Blanche that Aunt Emmeline has been replaced and presumably killed, Blanche\u2019s first course of action is to make a phone call to Archibald, the lawyer who witnessed and accepted the falsified signing of the will. \u201cHe had some stake in this, too. Her only other choice was to call the police. … Continue reading “Subverting Authority and the Law”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4368,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4368"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}