Devil In The Blue Dress Analysis

When entering the military young men are often looking for themselves; unsure and confused. While in the military young men learn discipline and integrity, this help figure out their manhood. When they leave the military they are able to apply their teachings to real life situations. In the novel Devil in the Blue Dress by Walter Mosley, Ezekiel Easy Rawlins does just that. Easy enlisted for the military to go fight in World War II hoping to find who he is and what he wants. After the war his manhood allows for him to make impossible decisions and survive life threatening events. In the article Power and Knowledge in Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress by Marilyn C. Wesley, she argues that “Easy’s war experience has introduced him to another kind of violence, the opportunity to demonstrate male competence through a unified struggle against a common enemy.” Easy is able to survive through his manhood which comes in the appearance of what he calls the Voice and how he reacts to situations he is in. Through the events Easy experienced in the war, Easy was able to find his …show more content…
Some may agree with what Mouse had do say in their final conversation together. Mouse tells Easy that he has to stop thinking he is a white man because of the way he has been acting which he believed has made him soft (253). While it may seem throughout his investigation that Easy has been acting as a white man due to his unwillingness to fight or commit violence. Easy is able to refrain from violence not because he believes he is white but because that is what he believes he needs to act in order to survive situations as well as help further his investigation. As seen in his confrontation with Frank Green where he yells at Mouse not to kill Frank because he was one of his sources which could lead him to Daphne