56 pages • 1 hour read
Rudolph FisherThe Conjure Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1932A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Science and Rationality Versus Mysticism and Superstition
The conflict between scientific and rational thinking and superstition dominates Fisher’s novel. As rational men, Detective Dart and Dr. Archer find the strange and apparently unexplainable findings of Frimbo’s murder case challenging and difficult to believe. Contrarily, characters such as Doty Hicks, Amarintha Snead, and Bubber Brown are open to the possibilities of bad omens and Frimbo’s supposedly supernatural abilities. Ultimately, the novel rejects black-and-white thinking; though Dart, Dr. Archer, and Frimbo eventually give scientific and rational explanations for the strange elements of the murder case, possible instances of mysticism remain, and the lines between science and the supernatural are blurred.
As men of science and logic, Detective Dart and Dr. Archer find it odd that an intelligent, educated man like Frimbo chose to become a fortune teller. Dr. Archer guesses that fortune-telling is a “better racket than medicine in this community” (21), reinforcing negative stereotypes about spiritual healers, especially Black ones. Through Frimbo, Fisher plays with the negative tropes about African and diasporic religions that were popular in his era, in which “witch doctors” were villains. While Frimbo maintains cultural and spiritual practices, he blends them with scientific rigor, creating a nuance where Dart and Dr. Archer initially refuse to see it.
Dart and Dr. Archer also do not believe Frimbo when he says that he was dead and returned to his body. Dart tells Frimbo that because he is alive, his attack does not legally count as murder, and the highest offense that the police department can pursue is assault. However, Frimbo makes an appeal to science and logic in the following explanation:
You are working on a common fallacy, my friend. You are making the assumption that any creature who is alive could not have been dead. This is pure assumption. If a body which has presented all the aspects of death, resumes the functions of life, we explain the whole thing away merely by saying, ‘He was not dead.’ We thus repudiate all our own criteria of death, you see. I cannot think in this self-contradictory fashion. Physically, I was dead by all the standards accepted throughout the years as evidence of death (137).
This quote shows that even science is not as cut-and-dry as it seems. Dart and Dr. Archer are intrigued by Frimbo’s logic, but Dart insists that they could never convince the legal system. Frimbo acknowledges this, pointing to a deep-rooted cultural divide between science and spirituality.
Several of the suspects in the novel are superstitious or believe in mysticism and the supernatural. For example, Doty Hicks wholeheartedly believes that his brother’s tuberculosis is a curse that Frimbo cast at his sister-in-law’s behest. Even though Frimbo tries to reason with him and tells him that his brother was sick before his sister-in-law met him, Doty does not believe this. As a result, he consults rival conjurer Bolus in hopes of getting revenge on Frimbo and saving his brother. He buys powder from him and tries to use it, hoping he can “out-conjure” Frimbo (86). This proves futile, hinting that Dr. Archer’s earlier assertion about charlatans bears some truth—not everyone who claims to be magic is.
Another character who believes Frimbo has supernatural abilities is Amarintha Snead. Mrs. Snead is a deeply religious woman who believes her friend when she tells her that Frimbo protected her son after a man stabbed him in the head. Mrs. Snead decides to consult Frimbo to stop her husband from beating her, believing that her prayers have gone unanswered. She tells Dart, “I been takin’ it to the Lord in prayer long enough. Now I’m goin’ take it to the devil” (62), highlighting the moral complexity that characterizes the novel. She is willing to endanger her immortal soul to free herself from her husband’s abuse, which emphasizes the severity of her situation and posits that moral solutions might be insufficient for dealing with problems like abuse. Tiger Shade and Bubber’s client’s husband are also superstitious enough for the basement church group’s music and Bubber’s sheeted corpse trick to scare them out of Frimbo’s house. With this, superstition is shown to have negative consequences since the men weren’t in any danger.
Despite claiming that there is “nobody black as me that’s less suprastitious” (22), Bubber also believes in his grandmother’s superstition about moon signs. He sees “death on the moon” the night before he goes to Frimbo’s house, which means he will see three deaths (24). Jinx finds this idea ridiculous, which results in one of their many playful, vitriolic disputes. However, this superstition is the most credible in the novel, as Bubber does witness three deaths by the end of the novel. Bubber is an example of how even mostly practical people might still believe in superstitions. While some superstitions are proven ridiculous in the text.
While most of the characters either embrace faith or rely on science and rationality, Frimbo rejects the binary dichotomization of science and mysticism. During Dr. Archer’s first visit, he says, “Pure faith in anything is mysticism. Our very faith in reason is a kind of mysticism” (165). This means that rejecting spiritual explanations can be equally dogmatic when science can’t provide an answer. He shows strong scientific knowledge while embracing a transcendentalist approach to psychology. However, he later reveals that many of the novel’s seemingly supernatural elements have rational explanations. The killer did not kill him but his assistant, N’Ogo, and he and N’Ogo had switched roles shortly before the murder to protect Frimbo from his enemies. After the murder, Frimbo kept up the façade until he felt he could safely return and help the police find N’Ogo’s killer. There is also an implication that Frimbo uses psychic foresight to win money while gambling, but he reveals that he simply “devised a mathematical formula whereby I was able to predict a certain probability” (235). Additionally, Frimbo manipulated his and N’Ogo’s blood with his serum but initially tried to make them similar to “prove” he had died and come back to life. The novel uses mysticism and superstition to create ambiguity, but Dart, Dr. Archer, and Frimbo provide scientific and rational conclusions for most of these mysteries. Still, the novel emphasizes that neither way of thinking is wholly correct or distinct from the other.
The Concealment of One’s Self and Intentions
Throughout the novel, N’Gana Frimbo uses secrecy and deception to conceal himself and his goals from both the police and his would-be killer. His secrecy serves a purpose as it provides him protection as the king of Buwongo. Toward the end of the novel, he says that “it has always been our custom, as is true of many peoples, that the chief, in whom resides the most important secrets of the nation, should be unnecessarily exposed to danger” (235). As such, Frimbo is extremely protective of Buwongo’s secrets. He tells Dr. Archer that he found a way “to escape this order and assume another” but that it is “[his] secret” (175). He also tells him that his dynasty has a “rite of the gonad,” and that Dr. Archer is the only person he can trust with the secret because it is possible that he “may never use it again” (206). When Samuel Crouch shoots him, Frimbo takes the secrets of his kingdom and dynasty to the grave, his last words being “The Buwongo secret … dies” (237). With this, one of Frimbo’s motivations for concealing the truth from others is preserving his culture and customs in the diaspora.
However, not all of Frimbo’s motives are cultural. He explains toward the novel’s end that he believed he was in danger because he “devised a mathematical formula whereby [he] was able to predict a certain probability in the popular policy game of this community” (235)—in other words, cheating at gambling. Thinking those running the game would kill him, Frimbo decided to switch roles with his servant, N’Ogo. His deceit included a device where he could see and talk to his clients without drawing attention to himself while N’Ogo sat in the chair and pretended to speak. He uses darkness to protect his secrets, keeping his chamber dark to hide his and his servant’s faces and maintain their façade. He also only works at night, when it is dark. The darkness serves as a symbol of Frimbo’s secrecy and his desire to protect himself and his kingdom’s secrets from his enemies. But while Frimbo’s secrecy helps him protect himself, it also makes Dart and Dr. Archer suspicious of him until he reveals the truth. In doing so, he makes himself vulnerable to the killer and is mortally wounded. His death reveals his final secret: his affair with Mrs. Crouch. As with other instances of adultery in the novel, this is revealed to be a dangerous lie, one that causes Crouch to kill both Frimbo and the disguised N’Ogo in his jealous rage.
Other characters conceal themselves and their intentions in the novel as well. In his interrogations of the suspects, Dart keeps the chamber dark, partly to give the suspects a sense of safety and make them more willing to open up to him because they cannot see his face. Bubber also uses the darkness in Frimbo’s house to conceal himself from Tiger Shade and his former client’s husband. Later, he hides in the dark and witnesses Frimbo burning a corpse, a key development in the case. While Frimbo believes he is operating under the cloak of darkness, the furnace illuminates him as Bubber watches, representing the ultimate inability to escape the truth.
Furthermore, Samuel Crouch uses deception in his attempts to kill Frimbo. In Dart’s interrogation of him, he states the following:
We can make the dark ones bright and the bright ones lighter—that seems to be the ambition in the community. We can fatten thin ones and reduce fat ones. I venture to say that, by the simplest imaginable changes, I could make Doc Archer there look quite unrecognizable (70).
This statement is ironic because Crouch has lied about his innocence and hints at his guilt through this description. It also foreshadows his believable disguise as Easley Jones, donning a wig and changing his face to look completely different. Along with lies and disguises, he uses darkness to hide his identity when he murders N’Ogo before the start of the novel and Frimbo toward its end. He turns off the switch box but burns his hand and depends on Dart and Dr. Archer pulling the handle. The light reveals him, and Martha attacks him, taking off his wig and unveiling him as Frimbo’s killer. As with Frimbo, the light reveals the truth of his deceit.
Jealousy as a Motive to Commit Murder
Jealousy, especially when infidelity is involved, is a common motive for murder. When Samuel Crouch is unveiled as Frimbo and N’Ogo’s murderer, Dr. Archer and the group know that his motive to commit the murders was his jealousy over Frimbo’s affair with Crouch’s wife, Martha. The novel first foreshadows the revelation of Martha and Frimbo’s affair and Samuel Crouch’s murderous jealousy on the first page. The song motif, “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You,” contains the lyrics, “What is it that you’ve got / Makes my wife think you so hot?” (1). The lyrics Bubber and Jinx hear at the end of the novel also allude to Samuel Crouch’s jealousy: “Since you won’t stop messin’ ‘round, / I’m go’n’ turn yo’ damper down” (241). The song reflects Crouch’s jealous hatred of Frimbo and his willingness to murder him to keep him from seeing his wife.
Samuel Crouch supports his wife’s work as a rent collector but lightly admits to Detective Dart that he “honestly envied [Frimbo] his manner,” implying that Frimbo has many traits that Martha likes about him (68). Dart lets him go after his interrogation of him due to lack of evidence, but Dr. Archer is unsettled by Mr. Crouch’s words, “at least he didn’t die in our debt” (69). This statement is cold but also appears to be an attempt to avoid suspicion from Dart and Dr. Archer.
Martha’s affair with Frimbo is first implied when she is the first person to call his name when he returns and says with “wide-eyed wonder,” “Frimbo—you’re—alive …?” (130). Her love is confirmed when Frimbo warns Dart about the traps he laid in the house, and the disguised Samuel Crouch says, “So it’s really you this time, Frimbo? Why weren’t you careful what you touched?” before shooting him. When Frimbo is shot, Martha comes to him, puts “her arm around his sagging shoulders,” and cries out his name “as one might cry out in torture” (237-39). She then attacks her disguised husband, telling him, “You—killed—the only man—” before being pulled off of him by police (239). Her actions confirm her feelings for Frimbo, and Bubber later reflects that he can understand Crouch’s actions, even though they are immoral. Bubber understands the jealousy a man might feel when he learns that his wife is having an affair and the desire to harm the other man.
The book’s subplots and the repeating musical motif—“I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You—imply that infidelity and the jealous rage that accompanies it are a broader cultural problem. Bubber gives up his city job to investigate cheating, remarking that it’s a stable choice because infidelity is so common. Multiple anecdotes are given about spouses cheating, each of which ends with abuse or murder. While witnessing one man kill his wife’s lover disturbs Bubber, it’s treated as a relatively ordinary occurrence. Likewise, “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You” is a hit song that everyone is singing, either oblivious or indifferent toward the song’s violent lyrics. With Bubber and Jinx’s pensive reflections on cheating and jealousy at the novel’s end, Fisher implies that this is an enduring problem that will result in more violence.
