Title: The Role of Setting in the Novel A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes

A Rage in Harlem is a ripping introduction to Coffin Ed Johnson who surrenders h

is entire life savings to a con man. The book gives a realistic depiction of Har
lem in an age when violence and the vices of social deprivation and injustices h
appened together. There is the aspect of bribery among the police in society as
Jackson steal from his boss to get some cash to be able to bribe a crooked U.S.
Marshall to ensure that he is not arrested and he uses the last amount of money
that he was left with in gambling. He borrowed money from his boss, and he los
t it in a confidence trick set up by his beautiful but disloyal girlfriend whose
name is Isabelle and she collaborated with her common-law husband, who is also
a gang leader. Jackson was annoyed by this turn of events, and he approaches his
brother who is also a snitch for Jones and Johnson to ensure that he gets his m
oney back. The police track down the swindlers and save Jackson.
Jackson is duped by a classic con, and he keeps getting further and further into
the trouble and finally gets to steal money from his boss and later loses it al
l in gambling before he could payoff. He is also unaware that the cop is part of
the con till he gets help from brother Goldy who keeps everything about him a s
acred.
The scene of the novel is set blistering and relentless. Jackson works for an un
dertaker and he is besotted by his girlfriend and has been introduced by the gir
lfriend t a man who can turn $10 bills into $100s and Jackson scrapes together a
ll that he can for his procedure but everything goes horribly wrong, and he find
s himself jobless and being broke, and Isabelle is not there, and he gets despe
rate to find her and seeks his brother to help him.
Goldy who is the brother to Jackson and from whom Jackson gets the help of findi
ng Isabelle and who makes a living through disguising himself as a Christian-rel
igious female impersonator of Sister Gabriel and he snitches to the deceitful d
etectives namely; Grave Digger and Coffin Ed.
The setting of the book is amazing, the story has a series of unfortunate events
and one event happen and which also leads to another which includes chaos, viol
ence, death, blood, sex, and crime and all these are elaborated in a humorous fa
shion that makes people laugh. There are life and reality in the book. And ther
e were representations of the life back in the fifties and sixties which is infl
uenced by urbanity and repetitive crime.
People crave to make easy money as they get involved in counterfeiting and the w
hole book switch between horror and comedy simultaneously as he shows some examp
les like Coffin Eds who was corroded with an acid and some other characters also
met their deaths. The matters and the setting in the book are not out of range,
and there is no omission or exaggeration of the paper. The urban scenery is defi
ned with sex, crimes, and deaths. The writer discredits Jacksons conversation wit
h a marshal that appears too brotherly claiming it is an insult to the black peo
ple. The conversation goes like, I just happened to give in to temptation. You ar
e a colored man as I am; it should be easy for you to understand me (Himes 8).

Jackson who is his brother and the plotting is incredibly deft as we move from s
et piece to set piece seamlessly with hilarity and Jacksons essential innocence a
mong a city of violence opportunists who provides the heart of the novel as he y
earns for his lost beautiful Imabelle. Two black detectives Johnson and Jackson
were involved in tracking down the perpetrators, and they happen to be the ones
involved and them being there as black detectives who had a responsibility of ke
eping the lid firmly on the heaving mass of crime, sex, and violence.
There is so much humor in the novel and which is underlying a dark anger with th
e plight of the characters who dwells in such poverty and desperation under diff
erent laws from the whites, and the social conscience of the novel was never obt
rusive, and each and everyone has depicted the despair and the cruelty. Social r
ealities are shown in the book clearly without hiding anything about society.
There is an indication of cohesiveness in the setting of the paper where charact
ers like Goldy are sacrificing his everything to ensure that his brothers wife an
d money returns. Many people feel that the sacrifice is purely due to brotherhoo
d, but it is more than that and Himes use this intentionally to balance between
the adverse repulsion being seen in the townsfolk. The conversation between Jack
son and the Marshall is also used to achieve the same thing.
The book a Rage in Harlem indicates that at the time, the New York police dealt
with the accused people and the victims of the crime in a different way from how
they deal with them today. And what the writer of the book was writing then was
hard for most people of 1950s to understand and grasp.
The setting of the books displays a level of violence of varying degrees which w
as comedic and elsewhere in the book two other characters meet deaths that are v
ery appalling where one of them was shot through both eyes, and the other was ha
cked open with an axe. Himes portrayed the police as being bad people as he had
a bad experience with the police in the greater part of his life as they are dec
eitful and object violence unless they are the once involved and they do not thi
nk that the idea of justice makes sense at all to them.
A Rage in Harlem is a quality book and is very well written, and the book depict
s the realistic portrayal of Harlem during a period when violence and social dep
ravation went together. Himes was not afraid to deal with these issues in the fi
ction writings. The book has social-political energies that are experienced in
the book.
A Rage in Harlem is a police procedural just like any other town, and there is v
iolence in the town, and there is female sexuality in a bad way, and the gender
roles are thrown into the plotting mix along with the alcohol and drug abuse and
the different varying ethnicities of some of the characters. The book elaborate
the incident where Jackson is separated from his woman Imabelle, and he tries t
o look for her, and he never doubted her motives and she had had a rough time ha
nging around criminals scheming to involve in crime while avoiding the church go
ing and God fearing men who would have wished to date her and assist her to keep
off the arms of the police.
Gullible love forms the basis of the novel and many events then follow in the no
vel and then there occurs irreversible tragedies. Jackson is too blind to see th
e danger of putting all her eggs in a single basket. Jodie reached down with a v
iolent motion, clutched him (Goldy) over the face with the palm of his left hand
, put his right knee in Goldys back between the shoulder blades, jerked Goldys bac
k against the pressure of his Chester Himes concerns lay in exposing the dark era
in Harlems history that was made not of blocks but crimes, social decadence, sex
, violence, murder and irresponsible substance consumption.nee, and cut Goldys ta
ut black throat from ear to ear, straight down to the bone (Himes 105).