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Part 1, Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Harlem Shuffle, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Crime, Class, and Social Mobility
Identity and Duality
Community, Change, and Loyalty
Systemic Racism, Injustice, and Power
Betrayal, Vengeance, and Integrity
Summary
Analysis
The narrative flashes back on Pepper’s life. Born in New Jersey, Pepper quit school after fifth grade to start working. Eventually, he fell in with a criminal crowd who paid him to run errands, and he became a club bouncer. Violent behavior led Pepper to a choice between jail or serving in the war effort, and he ended up sailing to Burma as part of the Services of Supply troops. He and other soldiers of color were put to work clearing a trade route between India and China. They worked alongside native men and many died from landslides and disease. Pepper was used to working and surviving, and viewed the world as indifferent and cruel.
Similar to the heist scene, the narrative briefly jumps to Pepper’s perspective to provide context for his actions and add depth to an important character. Pepper’s early life and his wartime experience cause him to become disillusioned with people in power. His resultant nihilistic worldview explains why he, unlike Carney, is not ethically troubled by his criminal inclinations, accepting them as the most reasonable path for his life. The Services of Supply was a military branch which provided logistical support to U.S. troops serving abroad during World War II.
Themes
In Burma, Pepper killed for the first time, suffocating a native man who’d been severely beaten by White officers. The war “completed him,” and he returned to the States a hardened criminal. In the present, Pepper is in a bar when he hears Arthur has been murdered. He goes to Arthur’s flophouse, where someone informs him the landlady found Arthur shot in the head. Last night, Arthur told Pepper about his retirement farm. Arthur imagined purchasing furniture from Carney for his house, with no mention of the Theresa job. Pepper compares the pointlessness of such hope to the uselessness of the road he helped build in Burma. He makes plans to discover who killed Arthur.
Pepper’s first murder is depicted as an act of mercy, showing that despite his hardened exterior, he remains an empathetic individual. Although Pepper thinks Arthur was foolish to think he could escape his life of crime unscathed, he immediately resolves to avenge his accomplice—not only because Arthur’s murder implies Pepper is also in danger, but out of loyalty. Here, the novel demonstrates that criminals, while flouting the law, can have a personal code of ethics.
Themes
The narrative returns to Carney’s perspective. Pepper enlists Carney in the search for Miami Joe, who disappeared after Arthur’s death. Leaving Rusty to run the store, Carney and Pepper drive uptown. Pepper reports that kids were taunting the officers outside Arthur’s house, which reminds Carney of the race riots of 1943, during which his father participated in looting. Pepper told Freddie about Arthur and sent him to tell Carney. Carney wonders where his cousin is hiding out and whether he should go on the run with Elizabeth and May. He drives Pepper to different establishments, where the man appears to threaten various people who might know Miami Joe’s whereabouts.
By Pepper’s reasoning, Miami Joe’s absence suggests that he is involved in Arthur’s death and therefore hiding from the others. Carney’s memories of the riots of 1943 portray his father’s criminal activities as they intersected with racial tensions, possibly implying Big Mike took advantage of civil unrest, using it as a cover for theft. Carney again feels thrust into his situation, showing that whatever small crimes he has committed, he is wholly unprepared for the consequences of a scheme involving multiple criminals.
Themes
Carney accompanies Pepper inside a defunct bar he used to patronize with Freddie, run by a woman named Mam Lacey. Nowadays it serves as a hideout for drug addicts. Carney thinks of it as an example of “urban blight.” Mam Lacey’s son, Julius, is high in the garden. Pepper beats him for information about Miami Joe, and Julius names a flophouse. Carney remembers Julius as a happy teenager and assumes he turned to crime after inheriting his mother’s bar. Carney inherited his truck from his father, Big Mike, after he was killed by police while robbing a pharmacy. One year later, Carney found $30,000 cash hidden with the spare tire. He used it to lease his furniture shop.
Pepper’s visits alter Carney’s perception of his neighborhood, illuminating hotbeds of criminal activity in out-of-the-way places. The visit to Mam Lacey’s old bar leaves Carney particularly shaken, illuminating how Harlem has changed since his youth. Like the neighborhood, Julius seems to have fallen upon hard times. That Carney used Big Mike’s (undoubtedly stolen) cash to lease his furniture store means that he owes a portion of his success to criminal enterprise. Knowing how conflicted Carney feels about his father’s legacy, it is safe to assume this detail of his shop’s origins irks him and makes him doubt his own integrity.
Themes
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Pepper and Carney stop for lunch at an Asian restaurant. Carney claims to be an entrepreneur, which Pepper calls “a hustler who pays taxes.” Carney is again struck by Pepper’s strangeness and how quickly he turns to violence. They drive to the house Julius told them about, where Pepper breaks down the door of Miami Joe’s supposed apartment. Inside is a Florida salesman who claims Miami Joe moved back home. Pepper hypothesizes that Miami Joe killed Arthur and took the money. Driving back to the store, Pepper tells Carney he used to work jobs with Big Mike, Carney’s father. Carney wonders if Pepper was one of the men who used to give him toys, and how quickly those toys broke.
That Pepper breaks for lunch shows that he even perceives tracking down snitches like Miami Joe as a job like any other. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t consider Carney’s distinguished profession to be any different than his own, as they are both hustling to survive. This comparison once again asserts that crime is often used to advance within a capitalist society. Pepper suspects Miami Joe has betrayed them, and his desire to punish the man points to Pepper’s own ethical code. That Pepper—a former associate of Big Mike—now views Carney as an associate forces Carney to again confront the ways he is becoming like his father.
Themes
