To Have And Have Not

“Then when we were about two miles offshore I slid him over. He slid over smooth off the roller. I never even looked in his pockets. I didn’t feel like fooling with him.”

Harry’s detached disposal of Mr. Sing’s body establishes the stark contrast between him and the “Haves.” While Sing is perfectly content with the immoral ways in which he cheats his fellow Chinese men out of their money and freedom, Harry refuses to loot his body, a moral code that reappears later in the novel when he deals with the Cubans.

‘“What did you kill him for?’ ‘To keep from killing twelve others,’ I told him.” 

This conversation between Eddy and Harry reveals Harry’s character. Unlike Sing, Harry is unwilling to manipulate innocent people for monetary gain; rather, he chooses to save the rest of the passengers, even though he considers them racially inferior.

“‘I’m a good man,’ he said. ‘You oughtn’t to talk to me like that.’ ‘They can’t make it fast enough to keep you a good man,’ I told him.”

Eddy’s reliance on alcohol to get through the day speaks to the level of avoidance in the Conch lifestyle. When faced with abject poverty, the only “surety” that he can rely on is the comforting numbness of rum, a dependence anchoring him within a vicious cycle.