Blind Man With a Pistol

 Chester Himes discovered in his mythical Harlem a correlative for urban black life and in the episode of the blind man with a pistol a final metaphor for the violence against them.  Himes advocated organized violence.

Two major themes dominate Himes' work.

 First, he was concerned with the way inequality affected the lives of blacks in the United States.

 Second, he attempted to articulate a thesis of the ways in which blacks should respond to that inequality.

Himes' Harlem novels were never true detective genre pieces.

 The earlier novels fulfilled few traditional expectations and the later novels withdrew further from preconceived notions of the detective story.

 The significance of the novels is their progressive movement toward a concentration on Harlem as symbol.

 Himes' used the detective genre to view the lives of Harlem blacks through individuals who by race were a part of it but who by livelihood were separated from it, the detectives Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones.

 Critics often confuse a Naturalistic writer's credo with his technique and mistake his intention to describe things the way they are to him as an indication his narrative will provide uncritical portrayal for its own sake.

 Himes' novels demonstrate how every detail of Naturalistic writing can make an assertion.

 These details add up to Himes's assertion of the true nature not just of Harlem but the entire

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blacks in the United States. Second, he attempted to articulate a thesis of the ways in which blacks should respond to that inequality. In articulating a position regarding both themes, Himes believed that violence enveloped the lives of American blacks and that violence would inevitably be part of the solution to the situation. Blind Man With a Pistol offers insight into Himes' view of violence in the lives of American blacks and they ways in which they do and should respond to such violence. James Sallis argues that Himes' Harlem novels were never true detective genre pieces, as that genre is demonstrated by writers such as Dashiell Hammett (Red Harvest, 1929; The Maltese Falcon, 1930) and Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, 1939; Farewell, my Lovely, 1940). He maintains the earlier novels fulfilled few traditional expectations and the later novels only withdrew further from preconceived notions of the detective story (Sallis 79). However, he argues "the significance of the novels is their progressive movement toward a concentration on the scene itself, on Harlem as symbol, using the detective story framework as the vehicle for character and social portraiture" (Sallis 79). This demonstrates Himes' desire to use the detec
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1794
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)