Blog 4 Revised
Chester Himes novel " IF He Hollers Let Him GO" is about a narrator by the name of Rob. Rob deals with being a black man who feels every white human is ready to attack him at some point due to the color of his skin. His dreams always haunted him. His paranoia comes true when one day he comes across the wrong white female and an pertipetia of the story takes place.
Rob is faced with a dilema, it's his words against a white lady words, when he is accused of rape. A co-worker by the name of Madge pretends to be frighten of Rob everytime they bump heads. He later discovers that he has an attraction for her and tries to persue her. They play cat and mouse but eventurally Rob decides he rather stay faithful to his girlfriend and marry her, but once Rob bumps into Madge at work, everything changes for the worst .
Personally I thought one of the key moments in this story was when Bob
got setup by Madge. On Madge quote "Stop, N! Don't , N! N,
don't Oh, please don't kill me, N...."(Chester Himes pg.180).
The narrator has readers very anxious to see what will happen next. The
climax of the story takes place when Bob is confronted by an angry mob,
they are fueled by Madge cries of rape. In those days black males were
considered worthless. It started with slavery, being slaves African
American were thought of and treated as subhuman. With that being said
no one second guessed that Rob wouldn't rape Madge. The narrator
infomed us in a lot of ways how racism was still a factor, everyday Bob
woke up in fear, afraid one day he would have to face a life and dealth
situation. Rob quote " Every white person I come into contact with,
every one I have to speak to, even those I pass the street- every
g*ddamn one of them has got the power of some kind of control over my
own behaviour" (Himes 166-167) Bob ends up getting beaten to a pulp,
which led me to believe his thoughts came true. I was left wondering if
he would die at that very moment or sent to a penitentiary.
The story ends with him being sent to the army instead, which was really shocking, cause the readers and the narrator thought he would be sent to jail for 30 years. Either way it was not a good twist of event.
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