If He Hollers Let Him Go

One of Bob’s deepest desires is to be able to live his life as a man. He feels that his masculinity is undermined because white people control his life, and he cannot be a man like white men can. In other words, Bob feels that the racist system he lives in emasculates him. In keeping with the primary theme of the novel, Bob feels that if he could just stop thinking about his race constantly—or if society did not force him to think about his race constantly—he could regain his masculinity and the respect that comes with it. But he feels that his Blackness will forever keep him from being given that respect. The barrier between himself and feeling like a real man, he feels, is the color of his skin.

Bob feels most impotent when he has been in a situation wherein he is completely out of control. Every time a white person does something to strip him of his autonomy—from deliberately assigning his crew the most difficult jobs at work to a fancy restaurant seating him right next to the kitchen—he is aggressively reminded of his place in white society, which makes him feel emasculated. His desire to reclaim his masculinity manifests in odd ways: He drives his car aggressively and angrily, drinks heavily, spends money recklessly, fights often, and makes love with his married neighbor. These attempts at taking control and trying to reassert his masculinity ultimately backfire, and he is left feeling helpless and overwhelmed again and again.

The foremost example of Bob’s masculinity being undermined is Madge’s chronic behavior toward him throughout the novel. Her very refusal to work with him suggests that, even though she is Bob’s subordinate at work, being a white woman, Madge ultimately holds the power over him. When Madge, almost excitedly, commands Bob to rape her, it is as if she believes this will establish her racial and social superiority over him. Even in the throes of sexual violence, Madge thwarts all of Bob’s attempts to establish masculine dominance over her, which further fuels Bob’s feelings of impotence.

Bob’s issues with his masculinity partially explain his questionable behavior with women. He flirts with different women on a daily basis, and Bob is often fixated on the possibility of sleeping with them. He even sleeps with his neighbor’s wife, Ella Mae, and shows no remorse in doing so. Sometimes he is even inappropriately violent with women, like when he slaps Alice across the face after her tryst with another woman or when he wrestles Madge to the floor in her hotel room. Bob’s lack of a stable identity as a man often leads him to act in inappropriate extremes; when he cannot control the everyday details of his life, he exhibits a violent, inappropriate masculinity to compensate for the control he feels he lacks.

Although Bob often expresses his frustration through rage, this emotional outlet is not limited to Black men in the novel. Acting out in a fit of rage is common for white male characters, too. Readers see this when Bob wins a gambling match against some of his fellow (white) coworkers, who become so angry they attack him. Johnny Stoddart, a white man who becomes Bob’s nemesis, also turns to violence to express himself. In their confrontation, Johnny knocks Bob out just because he is angry. An entire mob of white male workers is so enraged by the possibility of a Black man raping a white woman that they collectively beat Bob to a bloody pulp. As far as violent acts borne of rage are concerned, the white male characters commit far more than the Black male characters. This indicates that white rage is permissible, and Black rage is not. White male rage is seen as a necessary tactic to defend the power, control, and superiority of white males over all others in society, but Black male rage is seen as deviant, a threat to the existing order of things. In the system of white society, white and Black masculinity are in competition, and Black masculinity must be suppressed whenever possible, at all costs. Bob experiences this suppression over and over again throughout the novel.