As you read to the end of Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, think about your overall evaluation of our nameless narrator. What do you applaud about him? What do you critique? What message about race, class, and gender in American do you think Johnson seeks to leave you with? And why do you he tells us this story through the genre of autobiography?
Looking forward to our discussion tomorrow--please come in ready to debate and discuss this provocative text!
After finishing the text, the strongest impression I gathered from "Auto X" was that of fear and self-doubt. At first glance, the reader almost wants to congratulate this position of limbo which he acquires, allowing him to observe and judge from multiple points of view. However, on close inspection of all his relationships, and no matter which race he currently "belonged" to, he always seemed to feel at the mercy of the whim of whomever he met: the millionaire, his wife. His color never changed this circumstance, in nearly every relationship he experienced.
ReplyDeleteI really felt that Johnson used the point of view of an autobiography to illustrate and strongly highlight the importance of personal choice on the part of black citizens at the time. While acknowledging the difficulties faced in these times by individuals such as our "Auto X," he cautioned against losing sight of what was truly important: integration and the complete equalization of civil rights. By demonstrating the sly distractions and temptations (and fears) which Auto X succumbs to, Johnson stresses the need to rise above these. Quoted from his selection in the anthology, "Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee/ Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee."
--Casi C.
Upon finishing the text, I came to realize that our narrator was a very complex man. But more often then not, he would make me angry. For example, when he went to the church meeting, instead of realizing the emotional experience of seeing and hearing hundreds of people worship together, all he can focus on is the notes in the music. That is just strange to me. He says he knows the words come from the Bible, but the music, where does it come from? He is even brought to tears upon hearing the people sing, but not because of the fact they are worshiping. That whole scene just perplexed me.
ReplyDelete-- Bethany G
Johnson's novel relies so heavily on its narrator's subtle assumptions and quick, often thoughtless, evaluations of all the people he encounters that the effectiveness of the book as anything but a purported "autobiography" seems inconceivable. The title is the reader's first clue that our anonymous narrator's sense of self will be a little confused, if not completely contradictory. A man who describes himself as "ex-colored" is evidently a man whose identity has been shaped not by what he is, but by what he is not. He is not necessarily white, he's just decidedly not black; he defines himself by negation, by absence of color. It is this obsession with color (and lack of color, too, or whiteness) that hounds the narrator throughout his life. After the classroom scene in which he learns from his principal that he is not white after all, his account of the revelation is startling: "Perhaps it had to be done, but I have never forgiven the woman who did it so cruelly" (19). The narrator's use of "perhaps" here nearly belies his entire narrative of attempting to find any sense of peace as a black man; he seems to imply that, had he his way, he never would have had the revelation at all. The last few pages of the book find the narrator at no more peace with himself than he was as a schoolboy with no real footing in the social world. He claims he has "never really been a Negro" and uses third-person pronouns to distance himself: "their inner life," "my mother's people" (210, emphasis mine).
ReplyDeleteWithout these slight qualifications in his speech and thought, the narrator would be a different and less provocative figure. The autobiographical formula enables Johnson to play with what color and whiteness can mean for a person and how (in 1912) a man reared as white, even for only a few years, has already inferred from his surroundings the undesirable otherness and perceived inferiority of being "colored." As long as the narrator views his color as a blemish, he will forever be trying to vanquish it from his identity.
-Margaret Green
After finishing the reading I believe that our narrator could be considered selfish. For example at the end where he talks about being married to the women of his dreams and then after four years not being happy with her anymore. It seems to me the only person that will be good enough for him is his mother. Nobody will ever compare to his mother.
ReplyDeleteJarred K.
One thing I want to get out the way first is my love for the final moment in the novel where our protagonist feels the opportunity he has passed up. He's earned those nasty feelings in the pit of his stomach and I don't feel sorry for him. He forsook his own people and played the easy part of the white man. All the while he understood the "inner life" of the black man but refused to participate in the struggle.
ReplyDeleteJohnson is illustrating two kinds of people at the end of the novel. First we have people like Booker T. Washington who stand firm in their want to advance black culture in the face of the larger and developed white culture. Then we have people like the protagonist who simply allow themselves to be absorbed by the larger culture with no consideration for the bigger picture. People like the protagonist would sacrifice all it means to be black just so they can live a normal life by the white man's standards.
Hunter D.
Megan Blankenship noticed that the novel "never takes on a frivolous tone". I agree and think that this is because the narrator is not involved in his own life. He has many wonderful experiences but never fights for anything. Whenever he is faced with any sort of violence or hardship (his mother's death, the loss of his savings, the closing of the cigar factory, the shooting of the black widow, the burning of the man) he simply changes "the whole course of my life" pg 63.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed two exception to this: his return to the South and his marriage. On page 197 Auto X says that he "met her, and what I had regarded as a joke was gradually changed into the more serious question of my life." Auto X has been laughing at himself to make his absurd life bearable. He is lost in the middle of the color line, but if he views his absurdity as a joke, he doesn't have to find a place to belong.
When he meets his future wife, he realizes that to continue with his life he must resolve the "question of my life". He must decide who and what he is. After he makes his decision he feels that he has "sold my birthright for a mess of pottage" pg 211. He is never able to be completely black or completely white. Neither is he allowed to remain between the two, and it robs him of the ability to comfortably be a part of his life.
Sarah Hall
Johnson's narrator for all his sentiments on wanting to represent the Negro race is constantly on this search of whiteness. His wife is the pinnacle of whiteness with her blonde hair and blue eyes. He laughs off playing in the white circles as a "practical joke" (using the language of the preface)and secretly says to himself "I am a colored man." I want to scream out, "NOOO! You aren't!" He is a coward and a traitor as he states at the end. He is a completely infuriating narrator, but I understand why he is used.
ReplyDeleteHis other-ness allows for Johnson to exploit what drives the race issue of the US during this time. We see inside the black circles and the white circles. He is not the heroic figure or the completely desolate man. At all times he is this in-between, but Johnson's uses this to show how flawed and inadequeate the American definition of races is. There exists a gray area.
As many people have discussed so far, the issues of identity in this work are very complicated. The narrator is never truly and "ex-colored" man because, as he admits at the end of the novel, he had never been a colored man. On the other hand, he is only briefly a white man, an identity shattered in grammar school and never fully developed. From this moment on, he is a man without a race.
ReplyDeleteTo some, this would be a great opportunity, and at times it is for our narrator. He has the ability to become whatever race he would like. With the exception of the "one drop" rule, which he seems to negate in his appearance, he has nothing to stop him from rightfully belonging in either race. Sadly, it is his indecision and insecurities that lead him to dance back and forth between the two. To the narrator, it seems nobler to live as a black man, but he lacks the bravery to do so. This brings to mind the question of is it truly "noble" to indentify yourself with the underdog, or is this some manner of self-sacrificing Messiah complex?
The last paragraph seems one of the most interesting to me, because in my mind it took a huge turn. He seems to be struggling with a race complex throughout the story, but at the end when he says " I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent...I have choses the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage." It seems to me that he is regretting not choosing to embrace his musical talent, not that he regrets not choosing to live more as a black man and fight and struggle for equality in America.
ReplyDeleteOnce his love accepted him as a black man, it seems all he had to regret was not choosing a life of music. He regrets wasting that talent.
I doubted the sincerity of our narrator to the very end. However, I am not sure this was James Weldon Johnson’s intended reaction from his readers. At times I think he really wanted the reader to pity the narrator for his unfortunate status as a light skinned black man and the difficult questions he faced. At other times I think that couldn’t have been Johnson’s intention because the narrator has so many unlikeable qualities. Certainly the reader can’t be expected to feel bad for such an ambivalent, arrogant, and often cowardly narrator. Perhaps my confusion is due in part to the nearly one hundred years that have passed since Johnson’s publishing this book. It is very difficult to ascertain his intentions and how he wanted his readers to react because he is writing to the people of the early twentieth century. Almost certainly he wrote this book in an attempt to sway the opinions of white Americans, but whether he wanted to engage their sympathies in the race issue, or whether he wanted something more complicated from them is unclear to me.
ReplyDeleteEllie W.