Chester Himes' Blind Man With a Pistol

The blind man in Blind Man With a Pistol is a metaphor for violence in the lives of American blacks.

Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson are modelled on a pair of black policemen Himes knew in Watts.

The scenes of violence in Himes's novels are drawn from what Himes saw and knew of black life in America.

Two major themes dominate the work of Chester Himes.

Himes was concerned with the ways social and economic inequality affected the lives of blacks in the United States.

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

Himes believed violence enveloped the lives of American blacks and 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 the ways in which they do and should respond to such violence.

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.

 Himes continues to be footnoted to Richard Wright.

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ffers insight into Himes' view of violence in the lives of American blacks and the 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 195). 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 195). A. Robert Lee also agrees that the Harlem Himes puts on the page in the Coffin Ed/Grave Digger stories goes beyond merely providing an appropriate backdrop for a run of lively potboilers (13). He, too, believes Himes appropriated the Harlem scene to demonstrate the surrealistic nature of black life in America. He argues that in Himes's novels, "Harlem comes through as an urban hothouse mean with exotic
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Approximate Word count = 1732
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)