Big Black Good Man

“Olaf sat up slowly, not to answer but to look at this brooding black vision: it towered darkly some six and a half feet into the air, almost touching the ceiling, and its skin was so black that it had a bluish tint. And the sheer bulk of the man! His chest bulged like a barrel; his rocklike and humped shoulders hinted of mountain ridges; the stomach ballooned like a threatening stone; and the legs were like telephone poles. The big black cloud of a man now lumbered into the office, bending to get its buffalolike head under the doorframe, then advanced slowly upon Olaf. He was like a stormy sky descending.” 

The language that Olaf uses to describe Jim during this initial encounter is objectifying—he sees Jim as an assemblage of big parts that have nothing to do with humanity—and racist due to the comparison of parts of Jim to animal parts.

“Olaf now noticed that the ebony giant was well-dressed, carried a wonderful new suitcase and wore black shoes that gleamed despite the raindrops that peppered their toes.” 

Despite Olaf's fears, some clues to the kind of man Jim actually is are readily available to the reader. Jim's appearance characterizes him as a prosperous, careful man who cares about his appearance.

“It was not that the hotel did not admit men of color: Olaf took in all comers—blacks, yellows, whites and browns. To Olaf, men were men and, in his day, he’d worked and eaten and slept and fought with all kinds of men. But this particular black man.... Well, he didn’t seem human. Too big, too black, too loud, too direct and probably too violent to boot....” 

Olaf's reaction is classic racial stereotyping. He draws conclusions about Jim based simply on his physical appearance, especially his size and his blackness. Despite Olaf’s belief that “men were men,” the reader is able to see that Olaf, perhaps unconsciously up until this moment, has some racial bias. 

“[H]e felt as though this man had come here expressly to remind him how puny, how tiny, how weak and how white he was.” 

What Olaf most hates about Jim is how Jim’s overpowering presence makes Olaf feel about himself. Seeing Jim’s mere existence as an affront to his identity is one of many ways that Olaf objectifies Jim.

“Olaf saw that the giant’s eyes were tiny and red, buried, it seemed, in muscle and fat. Black cheeks spread, flat and broad, topping the wide and flaring nostrils. The mouth was the biggest that Olaf had ever seen on a human face; the lips were thick, pursed, parted, showing snow-white teeth. The black neck was like a bull’s.” 

This description coincides with imagery associated with black minstrelsy, an entertainment tradition in the United States that is characterized by exaggeration of black features and “blackening up”—blackface. In this case, Olaf’s perspective on Jim as nothing more than his blackness relies on this language, which, in real terms, traveled the world, even to Europe. 

“But what was he angry about? He’d had requests like this every night from all sorts of men and he was used to fulfilling them; he was the night porter in a cheap, water-front Copenhagen hotel that catered to sailors and students. Yes, men needed women, but this man, Olaf felt, ought to have a special sort of woman.” 

This description of Jim is further evidence that Olaf’s beliefs about the equality of men are challenged by his encounter with Jim. He wants to (but is afraid to) treat Jim differently because of his appearance.

“I’m not prejudiced. No, not at all. But....He couldn’t think any more. God oughtn’t make men as big and as black as that....But what the hell was he worrying about? He’d sent women of all races to men of all colors. So why not a woman to the black giant? Oh, if only the man were small, brown and intelligent-looking....Olaf felt trapped.” 

Olaf's comment about what he wished Jim looked like indicates that he is comfortable with African Americans only if they more closely approximate whites and are “respectable.” Olaf would find Jim acceptable, in other words, if he posed no threat to his own masculinity. 

“‘He’s just a man,’ Lena told him, her voice singing stridently, laughingly over the wire.” 

Like the hotel owner, Lena has a more egalitarian take on African Americans, and this perspective is driven by pragmatic, economic considerations. Doing sex work provides Lena an income to support her children no matter the color of the client. 

“Olaf had long known and felt that this dreadful moment was coming; he felt trapped in a nightmare [....] His lips refused to open; his tongue felt icy and inert. He knew that his end had come when the giant’s black fingers slowly, softly encircled his throat while a horrible grin of delight broke out on the sooty face. Olaf lost control of the reflexes of his body. He stared without breathing, gazing into the grinning blackness of the face that was bent over him, feeling the black fingers caressing his throat and waiting to feel the sharp, stinging ache and pain of the bones in his neck being snapped, crushed. He knew all along that I hated ’im. Yes, and now he’s going to kill me for it, Olaf told himself with despair.” 

This moment marks one of the significant moments of ambiguity in the story. For American readers, touching a white man without permission is the violation of a taboo, and for any person, having someone place his hands around your neck is threatening. Without other information, the reader is forced to conclude that perhaps Olaf's fears will prove to be justified.

“Then he lay awake the rest of the night dreaming of revenge. He saw that freighter on which the giant was sailing; he saw it springing a dangerous leak and a torrent of sea water gushing into all the compartments of the ship until it found the bunk in which the black giant slept. Ah, yes, the foamy, surging waters would surprise that sleeping black bastard of a giant and he would drown, gasping and choking like a trapped rat, his tiny eyes bulging until they glittered red, the bitter water of the sea pounding his lungs until they ached and finally burst. The ship would sink slowly to the bottom of the cold, black, silent depths of the sea and a shark, a white one, would glide aimlessly about the shut portholes until it found an open one and it would slither inside and nose about until it found that swollen, rotting, stinking carcass of the black beast and it would then begin to nibble at the decomposing mass of tarlike flesh, eating the bones clean. The giant’s bones were jet black and shining.” 

Olaf feels impotent in the face of Jim’s confidence and appearance. His only recourse is in fantasies of revenge. The contents of his fantasies are that Jim will be killed by natural forces, an outcome that indicates how deeply Olaf’s assumption of white superiority is ingrained. 

“‘One, two, three, four, five, six. Six nylon shirts. And they’re all yours. One shirt for each time Lena came.... See, Daddy-O?’” 

The revelation of the shirts is what it takes for Olaf to see Jim as a good man. The shirts are therefore symbols of reconciliation. 

“Then Olaf realized that there was a compassion in that stare that he had never seen before.” 

This is the moment when Jim finally apprehends the reality in which Olaf has been living. His reaction is compassion instead of violence, further underscoring that Olaf’s view of Jim has been distorted by his own fears. 

“‘Daddy-O, you’re a funny little man. I wouldn’t hurt you. I like you. You a good man. You helped me.’” 

This quote captures the first time that the reader gets Jim's perspective on the encounters with Olaf. The contrast between how the two men see the same events is a measure of the racial divide and the impact of individual perspective on what reality looks like.