earticle

영어

Focusing on Chester Himes’ Harlem Cycle, this paper examines the genre transformation of black detective fiction. In the Harlem Cycle, a series of detective fiction comprising nine novels, Himes alters the way of representing a detective from the traditional hard-boiled detective fiction through race and occupation. Whereas the earlier hard-boiled detective is established as white, Himes introduces black detectives, Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. Unlike the hard-boiled detective who maintains absolute independence as a private eye, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed have a close relationship with governmental authority as police detectives. This paper argues that, producing a radically different type of detective from the traditional hard-boiled detective fiction, the Harlem Cycle provides a new, opposing paradigm of criminality and exposes the racism in the police investigation structure. Hard-boiled detective novels define blacks as criminals; but Himes redefines whiteness as the root of criminality. Revealing intense hatred and strong aversion to racial oppression and exploitation, the Harlem Cycle warns against the apocalyptic future under systemic racism.