Bob Jones’ free indirect discourse and speech demonstrate his understanding of Gesellschaft American society structure, he discernibly deconstructs white society’s equality hypocrisy, and furthermore, African-American segregation policy in the armed forces. Moments such as discourse with Alice, his superiors and the debate between the women’s circle and Tom Leighton reveal Jones’ understanding of the ethnic problems within the United States. By his view point, armed services is yet another monster of Uncle Sam’s machine or rather another form of slavery.
What did the armed service mean for Jones and African American’s in the United States? Jones’s struggles to maintain intrinsic control of his own fate, and the Army infringes on destroying …show more content…
His refusal to embrace patriotic passion and struggle with fear for losing his deferment status, echoes the sentiments of Chester Himes’ close acquaintance Langston Hughes. Hughes poem, Montage of a Dream Deferred illustrates the post WW2 African-American conscience acknowledging the war’s failure to transform racial boundaries and their struggle with a return to a suspended domestic country life and even reversal of their prior individual labor efforts. Jones is a vocal predictive precedent of this viewpoint, and a close reflective voice of the author, he evaluates joining the armed services as the loss of the limited freedom he is allowed; and additionally, a postponement of his life and possible destroyer of his individual efforts. The characterization and even voice of Jones is a representative semi-biographical tool for Himes. In Several Lives of Chester Himes, Edward Margolies and Michel Fabre document Himes worked in a shipyard at Los Angeles, served an eight year jail sentence, was forced out before he could graduate college and undertook the same behaviors as Jones’s; for example, treating women harshly, engaging in multiple occasions of illicit sex, and drinking after being released from prison (31-42). That is to say, whatever Himes had undergone is represented in Jones character portrayal, and although Himes never served in the Army, it would be safe to assume Himes knew about the conditions of armed service through the various African-American presses documenting the war. Because Himes was partially disabled due to his fall down an elevator shaft, he did not have the danger of being drafted. The threat of the draft and the Army’s closest comparison to Himes personal experience is his prison stay, and this is why sometimes the two are portrayed as inseparable. (Don’t read
What did the armed service mean for Jones and African American’s in the United States? Jones’s struggles to maintain intrinsic control of his own fate, and the Army infringes on destroying …show more content…
His refusal to embrace patriotic passion and struggle with fear for losing his deferment status, echoes the sentiments of Chester Himes’ close acquaintance Langston Hughes. Hughes poem, Montage of a Dream Deferred illustrates the post WW2 African-American conscience acknowledging the war’s failure to transform racial boundaries and their struggle with a return to a suspended domestic country life and even reversal of their prior individual labor efforts. Jones is a vocal predictive precedent of this viewpoint, and a close reflective voice of the author, he evaluates joining the armed services as the loss of the limited freedom he is allowed; and additionally, a postponement of his life and possible destroyer of his individual efforts. The characterization and even voice of Jones is a representative semi-biographical tool for Himes. In Several Lives of Chester Himes, Edward Margolies and Michel Fabre document Himes worked in a shipyard at Los Angeles, served an eight year jail sentence, was forced out before he could graduate college and undertook the same behaviors as Jones’s; for example, treating women harshly, engaging in multiple occasions of illicit sex, and drinking after being released from prison (31-42). That is to say, whatever Himes had undergone is represented in Jones character portrayal, and although Himes never served in the Army, it would be safe to assume Himes knew about the conditions of armed service through the various African-American presses documenting the war. Because Himes was partially disabled due to his fall down an elevator shaft, he did not have the danger of being drafted. The threat of the draft and the Army’s closest comparison to Himes personal experience is his prison stay, and this is why sometimes the two are portrayed as inseparable. (Don’t read