#Conjure man skin

Most of these characters and the others get at least one passage of imagery-laden physical description. In addition to Spider Webb, the story also features characters named Bubber Brown, Jinx Jenkins and the unforgettably christened Aramintha Snead. If nothing else can be said about Rudolph Fisher-and a heck of a lot more can be said about this great writer (not great African-American writer, but great American writer)-it is that he has a way with character description. He was decidedly annoyed at the circumstances which had thus involved him, and his deep-set green-grey eyes glowed with a malicious impatience as he sat facing the well-nigh invisible detective. Spider Webb, an alert mouse-faced gentleman, perhaps thirty-five years old, was of dusky yellow complexion, rather sharp yet negroid features, and self-assured bearing. One version or another of the dark/darkness pops up close to ninety times throughout the text.

#Conjure man skin

Darkness lurks everywhere the pigmentation of the skin of the characters, the place in which the suspects/witnesses are interrogated and the neighborhood of Harlem itself. Darkness is the prevailing shade of difference in this story. But before the detection can begin, the physician must illuminate on the circumstances. This passage occurs very early in the book, shortly after the murder of the conjure man which is the crime being investigated. Even the ceiling was covered, the heavy folds of cloth converging from the four corners to gather at a central point above, from which dropped a chain suspending the single strange source of light, a device which hung low over a chair behind a large desk-like table, yet left these things and indeed most of the room unlighted. The walls appeared to be hung from ceiling to floor with black velvet drapes. The chamber was almost entirely in darkness. Within the room the physician stopped, looking about in surprise.

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