View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Repositori d'Objectes Digitals per a l'Ensenyament la Recerca i la Cultura DEPARTAMENT DE FILOLOGIA ANGLESA THE CREATION OF AN ALTERNATIVE SUBJECTIVITY IN WALTER MOSLEY’S DETECTIVE NOVELS AGUSTÍN REYES TORRES UNIVERSITAT DE VALÈNCIA Servei de Publicacions 2008 Aquesta Tesi Doctoral va ser presentada a València el dia 31 de maig de 2008 davant un tribunal format per: - D. Manuel González de la Aleja Barberán - Dª. Nieves Alberola Crespo - D. Ignacio Ramos Gay - Dª. Pilar Sánchez Calle - D. Russell Di Napoli Va ser dirigida per: Dª. Carmen Manuel ©Copyright: Servei de Publicacions Agustín Reyes Torres Depòsit legal: I.S.B.N.: 978-84-370-7172-5 Edita: Universitat de València Servei de Publicacions C/ Artes Gráficas, 13 bajo 46010 València Spain Telèfon: 963864115 UNIVERSITAT DE VALÈNCIA FACULTAT DE FILOLOGIA, TRADUCCIÓ I COMUNICACIÓ DEPARTAMENT DE FILOLOGIA ANGLESA I ALEMANYA THE CREATION OF AN ALTERNATIVE SUBJECTIVITY IN WALTER MOSLEY ’S DETECTIVE NOVELS Presentada por Agustín Reyes Torres Dirigida por Carme Manuel Cuenca Valencia, 2008 1 THE CREATION OF AN ALTERNATIVE SUBJECTIVITY IN WALTER MOSLEY ’S DETECTIVE NOVELS Agustín Reyes Torres 3 THE CREATION OF AN ALTERNATIVE SUBJECTIVITY IN WALTER MOSLEY ’S DETECTIVE NOVELS 5 A mi padre, que tanto creyó en mí, y a mi madre, que ciertamente merece mucho más, por su enorme e incansable espíritu luchador 7 Acknowledgements Writing a dissertation requires long periods of solitude as much as having encouragement from those who are close to you. The process of drafting, organizing and writing a dissertation can at times be overwhelming. This thesis is the result of my individual effort along with the support that I have received in specific moments from a fantastic group of colleagues and friends to whom I owe my appreciation. I feel immensely grateful to all those who helped me think about, plan, write, rewrite, and finally finish this work. First, I extend my heartfelt thanks to Carme Manuel, an unfailingly kind and demanding reader. Thank you for working with me and for asking those unexpected questions that kept my mind working. You have been an incredible mentor and I am indebted to you for all you have taught me. I also wish to thank my dear friend Professor Daniel Chávez of the University of Virginia, the first person who told me about Walter Mosley one day while having lunch at Middlebury College where we both have worked for several years at the summer program. Thank you for your astute comments and for helping me to take the first steps writing my thesis. Similarly, there are two other friends I would especially like to thank for reading different drafts of my chapters and making significant suggestions to make me progress: Professor Liria Evangelista of the University of Buenos Aires and Professor Daniel Chornet of the University of St. Louis. Thanks also to my editors Frank Foerster, Benjamin Solomon and Tamara Bjelland, and to other colleagues and friends such as Noemí Dominguez, Carmina Gregori, Armando Figueroa, Eliseo Valle, Pilar Guitart, Fernando Operé, Ruth Hill, Karen Frazier and Anna Chover. Thank you all for providing interest and intellectual sustenance on behalf of the project. On a different level, I must acknowledge the encouragement of my family and other very close friends. I could not have finished without their support. My gratitude extends to my mother, my sisters Mª Francisca and Elena, Migue, my niece Sofia, and my good friends Agustín Giménez, Pilar Sánchez, Oscar Labiós, Salva Fito, Elena Alonso, Encarna Márquez, Margarita Muñoz, Soco Chávez and Carlos Reyes. In closing, I would like to thank my beautiful fiancée Tammy Bjelland who has shown me what it truly means to love and be loved. I do not know how I would have completed this dissertation without her patience, kindness and understanding. She will always be my home . 9 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................... 15 Chapter 1 Analyzing and Reviewing Walter Mosley .................................... 21 Chapter 2 The Construction of Subjectivity in Easy Rawlins’ Character ..... 61 2. 1. Easy Rawlins’ subjectivity as a detective ........................................ 70 2. 2. Easy Rawlins’ subjectivity as a result of a new understanding of identity and an African American subversive consciousness .......... 81 2. 3. Easy Rawlins and black culture ..................................................... 94 Chapter 3 Easy Rawlins’ Coming of Age .................................................... 101 Chapter 4 Easy Rawlins’ (De)Formation of Identity through the Fifties .......131 4. 1. Easy Rawlins’ development and the conventional hard-boiled detective . 138 4. 2. Easy Rawlins’ emerging characteristics as a black detective ............ 154 4. 3. Easy Rawlins’ development as a post-colonial detective ................. 175 Chapter 5 Easy Rawlins’ Attempt to Redefine Himself .............................. 195 5. 1. Easy Rawlins as head custodian at Sojourner Truth High School ....... 206 5. 2. Easy Rawlins as a family man ..................................................... 217 5. 3. Easy Rawlins as a blues detective (from amateur to professional) .... 235 Conclusions ................................................................................. 263 Bibliography ................................................................................ 277 10 THE CREATION OF AN ALTERNATIVE SUBJECTIVITY IN WALTER MOSLEY ’S DETECTIVE NOVELS 11 Short-Title List In this study I have used the following abbreviations to refer to Walter Mosley’s novels in the Easy Rawlins series: DBD: Devil in a Blue Dress. RD: A Red Death WB: White Butterfly BB: Black Betty LYD: A Little Yellow Dog GF: Gone Fishin’ BBBB: Bad Boy Brawly Brown SEP: Six Easy Pieces: Easy Rawlins Stories LS: Little Scarlet CK: Cinnamon Kiss 13 Introduction I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time. Booker T. Washington Man must transform the world in which he is not recognized into a world in which this recognition takes place. G.W.F. Hegel Black American subjectivity emerges from a particular historical consciousness and experience(s). This subjectivity rests on bridges between the past and the present, slavery and freedom, the feeling of being both an insider and an outsider. Racial discrimination, need for recognition, social inequality, tensions, contradictions, hatred, and violence mark black mentality and the post- colonial reality in which most African Americans live in the United States. This study is based on the representation of the black hero’s subjectivity that Walter Mosley portrays in his Easy Rawlins series. My particular interest is to analyze the figure of Easy Rawlins as an individual that reflects a post-colonial mentality and a fluid hybrid identity: Easy lives on the edge between different worlds and different cultures, and endeavours to reinvent himself by constructing a space in which he can achieve respect and recognition. I have chosen to work with the Rawlins novels for two main reasons. First, they cover a period of more than twenty-five years, from 1939 to 1966, in which it is possible to observe how the protagonist’s black identity evolves and is subject to constant change. Second, this period coincides with a crucial time in history when a new black consciousness emerged as a result of World War II, the migratory flow of thousands of black southerners to the cities and the civil rights movements. I will explore Easy’s gradual formation of identity throughout the ten 15 novels he appears from when he is nineteen in Gone Fishin’ (1997) until he is forty six years old in Cinammon Kiss (2005). Evidently, his development is affected by the different personal situations he has to go through, and the historical time that he happens to live as a black man through the 50s and 60s. The subject is culturally and socially constructed, and Easy is no exception. Although cultural codes are shared and human beings live together, every individual is an independent self with a unique perspective and a single first-person ontology. In Easy’s case, I will argue that there are three main aspects that shape the character’s subjectivity: his role as a detective, his post-colonial consciousness as a black man raised in a society dominated by whites, and finally, his attachment and defense of a strong African American culture. From a literary point of view, there is no doubt that Easy Rawlins responds to what E. M. Forster called a “round character,” one who is fully characterized and complex, and sometimes even contradictory. It is also evident that he changes over the course of the stories. His black identity is not given and stable but constantly under construction. As a first person narrator, Easy often lets the reader know what his thoughts and emotions are, yet he is still unpredictable. Above all, we will find that although there is a strong influence of his role as a detective, it is his blackness that determines his way of thinking. In my study, I will devote Chapter 1 to the analysis and review of the most relevant criticism of Mosley’s work related to Easy Rawlins. I will highlight and compare the critics’ contributions and discuss their different perspectives. Previous academic works have examined a wide range of topics such as Mosley’s interest in denouncing the discrimination and marginalization of American society (M. Wesley, A. Goeller), his emphasis