Repressing the Absence of the Truth: Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress

Abstract

Abstract:While hermeneutic criticism of Devil in a Blue Dress essentializes the identity of its protagonist Easy Rawlins, this deconstructive study examines Rawlins as lacking such a referent. From this perspective, the novel allegorizes Derridean destinerrance, the open-ended deferral of meaning. Rawlins represses a scene Marilyn Wesley calls a "deconstructive moment." His forgetting that moment, which undermines identity, also dramatizes a requirement of reading and criticism. The essay draws on Derrida's unpublished comments about race, which are nevertheless accessible online. These include the observations that race has no content and that, from the beginning, deconstruction targeted racism.