Power and Kniowledge in Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress
2001; Saint Louis University; Volume: 35; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1945-6182
Autores Tópico(s)Gothic Literature and Media Analysis
ResumoOne should try to locate power at the extreme points of its exercise, according to Michel Foucault, it is always less legal in character, where it is completely invested in its real and effective practices (Two Lectures 97). Novels of detection, which investigate extreme instances of extra-legal violence, may, therefore, be understood as pertinent inquiries into the practical operation of power. And crime fiction, contemporary critics argue, is a particularly apt medium for the negotiation of racial inequities. [1] Walter Mosley's adaptation of the hard-boiled genre in Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), the first volume in his Easy Rawlins mystery series, stages an examination of the new possibilities for black empowerment in the aftermath of the Second World War. [2] Originating in the 1920s, the American hard-boiled detective story is similar to its classic British counterpart in organization, but dissimilar in content. It begins with the introduction of the detective, then sets him into action in pursuit of a mystery which turns into a crime, trails him through a convoluted investigation, and concludes with the solution of the crime. The differences derive from setting--the corrupt underworld of the modern city instead of the potentially pastoral British country house. In place of imposing rational discovery, the hard-boiled hero experiences bewildering initiation into the violence just under an urbane surface. Unlike the cool and remote classic detective, the hard-boiled variant is understandably human in his confusions and disappointments, and he substitutes simple toughness and temerity for esoteric methods of logical reasoning in order to fashion an ad hoc morality out of the lost ethics of an impure world. The system of justice he encounters is damaged but not bey ond repair. And it is his job somehow to mend it. [3] The essence of both the classic and hard-boiled detective story is the pursuit of knowledge, and the source of that knowledge is the violence that threatens civil order. The difference between the white hard-boiled detective and Mosley's black detective is to be found in the ends which that knowledge serves. Despite his cynicism, a character like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe is a servant of the dominant system of law and order. But Mosley's Easy Rawlins needs to learn how the operation of that system in the post-war era affects the power of the black man to survive and prosper. This lesson takes shape through a series of mentors who teach him about the levels and types of violent and finally leads him to the enigmatic woman whose mystery abrogates the conventional categories of his experience. His process of detection does not result in a unitary moral code; instead, the acts of violence he encounters call for a confusing variety of ethical responses. Through the adventures and the ambivalence of the black detective, Devil in a Blue Dress and subsequent works in the Rawlins series enact a Foucauldian structure which teaches that like law, is not an order to be retrieved but the contingent result of specific circumstances that black men may understand through violence and adapt to their own needs for respect and freedom. If, as the saying goes, Knowledge is power, it makes sense that the race and class in charge have sought to curtail its access. The restriction of black knowledge is historically evident, from laws against teaching slaves to read to contemporary inequities in support for education in predominantly black neighborhoods. The violation of this restriction is certainly one of the major appeals of the black detective novel. The classic detective, like Sherlock Holmes, an agent of the aristocracy, puts his highly specialized knowledge to use solving lurid crimes in a manner that protects the dominant class from the threat of or responsibility for violence. By defining criminal activity as deviation, his solutions demarcate knowledge as separate from violent power. …
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