Capitalism and the Color Line: Dissecting Racialized Class Consciousness in If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes

open_access
Open Access
Author:
Keliihananui, Demi
Area of Honors:
English
Degree:
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Kevin Michael Bell, Thesis Supervisor
Matt Tierney, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
capitalism
marxism
race
class
gender
Abstract:
This paper examines the conflicting nature of class consciousness and racialization in Chester Hime's novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go, published in 1946, which exists in the literary tradition of the "protest novel." The character of Bob Jones, an African-American shipyard worker in Los Angeles during World War II endures a harrowing altercation with a white female co-worker, Madge which fundamentally shapes the narrative structure of the novel, and Bob’s devolvement into psychological turmoil. The events of the novel showcase how Bob is caught within a structure that binds him to capital while simultaneously subjecting him to racial violence that limits his agency and makes him aware of the constant reinforcement of his dehumanization by the ideological and state structures around him. I examine different techniques for measuring class consciousness, and marxist thought from prominent leftist thinkers such as Louis Althusser, Guy Debord, and Gyorgy Lukacs. Additionally, I observe the intersection of gender and identity in the novel with highlighted pieces from Maria Legones, and Angela Davis. Ultimately, the paper grounds itself in the different revelations of the ontological framework of the Black existence and its demystification in Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin White Masks, Anthony Farley’s article “Perfecting Slavery” and the section of W.E.B. Dubois' Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 “the propaganda of history.”