An Analysis Of White Butterfly

An Analysis of White Butterfly

In all of his books, Walter Mosley captures the environment and personalities of African Americans throughout post WWII history. His first book A Devil in a Blue Dress was met with instant acclaim. In this book he introduced one of the most unique sleuths that the literary world had seen. This 20th century Sherlock's name is Easy Rawlins. In each Easy Rawlins mystery, Mosley brings out a certain aspect of his protagonist's life and uses it as a subplot. In his third mystery, White Butterfly, Mosley looks at the relationship between Easy and his wife, Regina.

The story starts off with Easy enjoying a quiet Saturday afternoon with his family. He has two children, Jesus and Edna. Jesus is a young Mexican boy who Rawlins took in and kept as his own. The young boy had been abused when he was young. In fact, he had been sold to a sick man as a sex object. As a result, Jesus was psychologically scarred. He does not speak a word to anyone, especially men. As Easy is resting on his porch, two plain clothes detectives pull up onto the Watts street in front of Rawlins' house. As they approach him, Easy knows that there is something big going on that he doesn't want to get into. The detectives, Quinten Naylor and Roland Hobbes, convince Easy to take a ride with them. The take him to a murder scene where a black prostitute has been brutally murdered. Since Easy is know for his work around the black community as a private detective, t...

An Analysis Of White Butterfly

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