The Conjure Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem

“I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you,

I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you.

What is it that you’ve got

Makes my wife think you so hot?

Oh you dog—I’ll be glad when you’re gone!”

The chorus of the popular jazz song is introduced here as a motif. Here, it foreshadows the murder that Dr. Archer, Bubber, and Jinx are about to discover. It also introduces Jealousy as a Motive to Commit Murder with lyrics specifically calling out cheating. This foreshadows the reveal that Samuel Crouch is Frimbo’s killer at the end of the novel because of the latter’s affair with Mrs. Crouch.

“‘How’d he get into a racket like fortune telling?’

‘Ask me another. Probably a better racket than medicine in this community. A really clever chap could do wonders.’”

This set of quotes demonstrates and introduces the theme of Science and Rationality Versus Mysticism and Superstition by showing Dart and Dr. Archer’s confusion over Frimbo’s choice to become a fortune teller. Dr. Archer suggests that Frimbo must have entered the profession for money because it is the only reason he can see an educated, intelligent man doing so. This reveals cultural stereotypes about spiritual workers, which Frimbo subverts in later chapters.

“‘Soon as Jinx here called me,’ he said, ‘I knowed somebody’s time had come. I busted on in that room yonder with him—y’all seen me go—and sho’ ‘nough, there was a man, limp as a rag and stiff as a board. Y’see, the moon don’t lie. ‘Cose most signs ain’t no ‘count. As for me, you won’t find nobody black as me that’s less suprastitious.’”

This quote uses Science and Rationality Versus Mysticism and Superstition to establish Bubber’s obsession with moon signs omens despite being a mostly practical man. Over the course of the novel, Bubber begins to believe that the moon sign’s predictions are coming true and that he must be careful. Though the novel gives most of the strange incidents in the story scientific, rational explanations, the moon signs are implied to be accurate.