If He Hollers Let Him Go Stereotypes

If He Hollers Let Him Go, by Chester Himes, is a novel written in the 1940’s that fictionalizes the experience of being black in America. The novel centers around one black man named Robert Jones, mainly just referred to as Bob in the novel, and his experiences both in his work and relationships. The novel’s main characters are Bob, his paler skinned, but still black, upper class girlfriend Alice Harrison, and Madge, a white woman with whom he works with. In If He Hollers Let Him Go the relationship that takes place between two of the novel’s main characters, Bob and Madge, discusses the stereotypical relationship between a black man and a white woman at that point in history, which was the overpowering black man wanting to rape the pure and

One major conflict in the novel is Bob’s internal struggle on whether or not to rape Madge. While for a portion of the text Bob has made the decision to rape her in an act of defiance against white supremacy, his plan takes a sharp turn when he discovers that Madge wants him to rape her when she exclaimed, “ ‘All right, rape me then, n*gger!” Her voice was excited, thick, with threads in her throat. I let her loose and bounced to my feet. Rape—just the sound of the word scared me, took everything out of me, my desire, my determination, my whole build-up.[…] The only thing she had to do to make me stop was just say the word.” (Himes 91) Bob wanted to rape Madge in order to take control of the narrative, but the moment Madge instructs Bob to rape her the power is put back into the hands of the white participant and out of his. Bob realizes that by going through with the rape his isn’t defying white supremacy, but perfectly subjecting himself to the stereotype many white’s at the time have put in place for him of a black man being a rapist. This stereotype is proven to be the people of the times narrative when Madge creates the fiction tale of her rape and because “blackness” is already associated with rape and violence, Bob is automatically condemned in the public’s consciousness. This public consciousness is so strong that it even pushes Bob into wanting to

By teaching his readers about the power of stereotypes, Himes also teaches his readers how stereotypes can negatively affect a population both internally and externally. Stereotypes lead to lies, stereotypes lead to rape, stereotypes lead to murders and it must come to an end. Himes wrote this at a time when no one would listen or want to listen to his message, but now hopefully the novel’s current readers can understand the complex way stereotypes can infiltrate society and develop into tragic cases such as Bob being fired and sent to the army in the novel and Emmett Till’s real life brutal