The (double) Consciousness in African American crime fiction - Popular literature as platform for social criticism
Kristof Hoppen
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, Ruhr-University of Bochum (Philologie), language: English, abstract: This work deals with double consciousness in contemporary African American crime fiction. [...] In order to find out what characterizes African American crime fiction, or at least a part of it, and where it can be settled in this large field, two selected novels, Chester Himes’ Cotton Comes To Harlem and Walter Mosley’s Devil In A Blue Dress will be analyzed in the background of the concept of “double consciousness”, a term which was coined by W.E.B. Du Bois in his work The Souls of Black Folk in the early 20th century. [...]
Light will be shed on the generic features of the novels, such as the plot, the narrative structure, the imagery and the constellation of the characters. Afterwards a short outline of the development of the detective novel shall be sketched to provide the reader with a necessary knowledge which will help during the analysis of the works. [...] The thesis of this paper is that double consciousness is an omnipresent element in the selected works and that it shapes each character differently in a way that it might lead either to success or failure. Depending on how the specific character is able to recognize his/her own two consciousnesses, this awareness forms the character’s development in the plot and what he/she achieves in the end.
