As you continue reading 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!
Auto-Ex seems to be a very complicated, confused, and human character. Since we knew going into the book that it was actually a novel and not an autobiography, we can easily shape are views of him as a character rather than a real person. Johnson does a great job of portraying this man's almost too-close-to-home flaws. Whether it be selfishness, arrogance, addiction, etc., they are all very real, human flaws that many people deal with.
ReplyDeleteThough the narrator carries these flaws his whole life, he battles through them to therein display his more positive qualities. Those of passion, the continuing search for knowledge, dependence, etc. The one I admire most in him is the passion he brings to all aspects of his life. He cares deeply about music and love and travel and never half-asses anything...even gambling.
Johnson uses the autobiographical format to make his messages more real. Had this book been released as a novel, people may have discarded it as some crazy man's imagination. But because people were led to believe that all the events in this book were true, it magnified the issued Johnson was adressing about the times. Johnson was trying to portray the ridiculous and immature notions many Americans held about race and class.
Sam Newbold
The narrator in this book has both annoying qualities as well as admirable ones. His egotistical way of speaking about himself makes me dislike him, yet not hate him. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, talking about weeping in his mother's arms, or music bringing him to tears, or his feelings of homesickness drawing tears to his eyes. Instead of feeling sorry for him or admiring the passion he has for music, I find myself annoyed with his lack of control. I admire his musical talent, as well as his knack for learning languages, but this too is slightly annoying because his matter-of-fact way of speaking about his talents makes them less impressive.
ReplyDeleteI am honestly confused as to what his real message is about race in America. I cannot pinpoint one clear overreaching general argument or message he is trying to convey or leave the reader with. Admittedly, this is probably my lack of understanding not a flaw in Johnson's writing, or the novel's message.
This book was sold as an autobiography because I believe it makes the character's story seem more real and more closely related to the readers. A novel can be dismissed, quite easily, as fiction and something not the be taken literally. Autobiographies send the message that the happenings in the book took place and the racial and class based questions are those that were common in America and that time.
Alex Shirley
So this is round two. Because when attempting a simple editing error, it erased my previous post. Did I mention I hate blogs?
ReplyDeleteHaving actually completed the book this afternoon, I am left irritated at the narrator. He seems to regret his every decision he ever made. Even his children become a regret to him. I don't dislike him for his human flaws, such as egotism, but rather I dislike him for the fact that it took his entire life to actually figure out any sort of definitive answer. The trials he went through and/or witnessed as a white man and as a black man seemed fruitless and trivial until that final moment of retrospect. This was very unrealistic to me. I find it hard to applaud him for anything, because he hasn't done anything to deserve said praise. The narrator even proves my point by agreeing with me via the last sentence of the book.
I'm no intellectual and am probably misconstruing what Johnson's intentions for the novel are but I couldn't help but feel that what it was saying was that in order to not only be successful, but to be really worth something (meaningful life) Auto X, or anyone from the time period, must be either a white man or a prominent Negro leader/activist. Anything else was just a waste of time.
Instead of writing some political speech or race text, Johnson chose to write it in the style of an autobiography. He did this not to tell a story but to capture the attention and invoke an emotional attachment from his readers. If you feel you are privvy to someone's innermost thoughts and secrets, you become involved and attached. Rather than lecturing issues of race and class, Johnson disguised his messages through a narrative autobiography. Accomplishing the task of engaging the reader and thereby inflicting a stronger emotional connection.
Elizabeth Young
When I first started reading this novel I had a mindset that I would not like it because I generally do not like the books that are assigned for my classes. However, I was soon drawn in by this mans life and the heartache and trials that he endures as he tries to find his place in this descriminating world. At first the narrator just categorized things due to the race of a person but as the novel progressed he began to branch out from that and soon started categorizing not only to the race of a person but also subdivided them into social class based on their accomplishments, wealth, and their social standing within the community.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that I do not like about this narrator is how he brags about himself and lifts himself above others. He is very egotistical and I generally do not like those type of people. Yet, he is very sensitive and, in a way, naive and that helps him to be a likable person. That quality counter balances his ego making him easier to like and connect with because it shows the reader that he is not as perfect as he sometimes likes to be.
My favorite chapter so far has been chapter five, especially when he is describing the different classes within the black race. My favorite quote within that chapter would be found on page 80, "I think that the white people somehow feel that coloured people who have education and money, who wear good clothes and live in comfortable houses, are 'putting on airs,' that they do these things for the sole purpose of 'spitting the white folks,' or are, at best, going through a sort of monkey-like imitation." That quote to me sums up the whole race questions because it states that the white folks believe that they are smarter than the black folks and that even the smartest of them all is not smart enough to be like the whites but to only do a "monkey-like imitation" of them. In this chapter it also says that the first class in the black race is the most removed from the white class out of all three classes. I think it is because the white folks do not want to believe that they are capable to be just like them therefore they try to stay as far away from them as possible so they do not have to think about it.
So far this is a very good book and I cannot wait to finish it!!
Lauren Reeves
After finishing this text, it seems that the entire context is an internal struggle within our narrator. Throughout all his experiences, he is able to find the positive and negative in both the white and black races.
ReplyDeleteOur narrator leaves his benefactor millionaire friend from Europe towards the end of the text with a purpose to try and make relations amongst the South better, through music. He ends up witnessing the most horrific scene that even I could imagine seeing and runs away. I was left with the sense that instead of trying to fight for what he felt was right, he was frightened by the extremes within all people and just fled the scene. He had it all, his luxury white life, and his white father leaving him behind (which is one of the hardest things to deal with as a child). The good-hearted nature of the black race, as well as the terrible violence and stealing. So, from the beginning of the text until the end, he is able to witness the good and bad in everyone rather than judging by basis of color. Perhaps this is what the author is trying to point to the readers.
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ReplyDeleteI do not understand why the narrator feels as if he has to take sides concerning his "race". Even though he is biracial, the narrator seems to think that if he is half black, then that means he is obligated to identify strictly with the African American struggle and feel guilty for "posing" as a white man. Is seems as if James Weldon Johnson, rather than taking an opportunity to unify both races through one character, is merely reinforcing the clear-cut racist views of the time. While the novel should have emphasized that one should be proud of and celebrate every aspect of oneself, the message that i got was that i should be guilty for belonging to the selfish and bland "white" race. This novel, with its emphasis on color and strict racial classification, seems to me to be contributing to the problem, rather than the solution. I know that this book was written for different times and a different culture of people, so i clearly lack empathy and insight in this regard. I think it is safe to say that my annoyances concerning the narrator's views clouded my interpretation of the the book's true message, but i cannot deny the sourness evoked within. This being said, the characters that the narrator meets throughout his life (specifically the African American on the boat to New York) give the reader different view-points. I wish that these contradictory views would have been given more force, rather than be portrayed as submissive and cowardly. I know that this is certainly fitting to the realism of the autobiographical nature of the text, but it clouds what the actual message is. The questions this book left me with are: Is James Weldon Johnson speaking through his narrator? If not, what are we supposed to take from this novel?
ReplyDeleteTo avoid sounding like a complete negative jerk, i would like to talk about the aspects of the novel that i did like. While cheesy and predictable at times, the narrator's journey through America and the rest of the world give the reader many different cultures and opinions (of course it is all filtered through the narrator's own opinions). James Weldon Johnson shows the reader so many differing ideas on race and social hierarchy that i cannot figure out which belong to the author and which belong to the characters. I would like to believe that Johnson was not trying to give any solutions, but instead merely prompting the reader to ask questions and re-examine his/her own beliefs. What this novel did for me, was to get me to think about something that i have not thought about for a long time. I believe that it is very healthy to discuss such topics as the social constructs of race and class distinction, because ignoring the problem does not help anyone. It is important, although extremely difficult, to see the world from another individual's eyes; the Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man did just that. Despite my negative views of this book i am glad that i read it, because enjoyment is only a small part of literature.
stuart kinley
The character with which the narrator most closely identifies is his benefactor who took him to Europe. Near the end of Chapter 9, the benefactor gives his philosophy of life: "make yourself as happy as possible, and try to make those happy whose lives come in touch with yours; but to attempt to right the wrongs and ease the sufferings of the world in general is a waste of effort. You had just as well try to bale the Atlantic by pouring the water into the Pacific." Our narrator seems to follow this advice for most of the story. He often allows his reasoning to flirt with ideas of fighting the race issue in America. Ultimately, however, he decides to pass as white and live for himself. By following this advice, I mean his life story ends up following that advice. I am not sure he completely subscribed to the benefactor's philosophy of life as being the best way of life. The end of the story reveals the narrator later in life still struggling to formulate his own philosophy in life. "...and yet, when I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought that, after all, I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage." He claims that his love for his children keeps him from desiring to be something else. I assume if it were not for his children, he would likely be unhappy with what he became. I believe the most significant concern of the narrator is selfishness. He continually reflects upon the selfishness of each situation he encounters. Besides the coloured men who publicly fight the cause of their race our narrator feels "small and selfish." Having children allowed the narrator, for once, to be completely selfless. This seems to relieve him of his dread that his whole life may end up being selfish.
ReplyDeleteI think that the major race issue centers around tragic nature of Auto-Ex's life, specifically the event when he is revealed as a coloured man. Upon his introduction into a world that he saw through a 'coloured lens', Auto Ex's narrative begins to form the story of the African American's history in the US. The nation has served as home for decades in this post-civil war America, and yet the entire race has been made out as the "other", defined by their unfamiliarity. Their culture seems as starkly opposite to conventional or traditional white culture as their appearance is. Thus, JWJ's portrayal of Auto-Ex's great tragedies is a comment on the tragedy that is the black man's place in America. A race omitted from the culture that defines their homeland, the African American culture is one that grew distinctly separate, and this is the great duality that both Johnson and Dubois spoke of...
ReplyDeleteDue to the fact that he was raised by a single mother, and that most of the positively described characters in his autobiography, the narrator is a bit on the feminine side. If one thinks of characteristics that are typically masculine, s/he would come up with words like chivalry, bad-assery, and control. But the narrator does not have these, especially during the time marked in finality by his mother's death. One could say that he is kind of a nancy. When he transitions to his next period in life, he tries to align with men as much as he can; really, he is afraid of women, shy. He begins to transition to what he finds is masculinity based on mirroring what is around him. He starts to drink, to gamble, and, as Bukowski would be proud of him for, quit his job to do so. He then runs into his millionaire, and this makes him change his mind as to what masculinity is. The gambling self dies with the murder of the widow. Again and again he will reject change into masculinity and coming of age by trial and error.
ReplyDeleteUpon finishing the novel I found that it was an enjoyable read but the narrator seemed to constantly question and contradict himself throughout. I found myself making decisions for him in my head. I personally think I would have stayed with the millionaire and travelled the world. When the narrator decided that his pride was more important than the happiness that he was sharing with his companion while travelling the world I was a little disappointed.
ReplyDeleteAnother disappoinment I found was when the narrator described the black man who was to be lynched in the end of the novel. Is he racist? Does he think because he has the blood of a white man that he is in some way better than the black man and inhabits the ability to judge him? His lack of sympathy for a man who was about to be brutally murdered haunted me.
Another point of the conclusion that I didn't enjoy was his wife's reaction to the narrator being a half colored man. I would have liked it better if she would have accepted him the way he was because she loved him instead of acting as if she was in disgust contributing to our narrator's insecurities.
Ashley Proctor
Upon finishing reading Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man for a second time I think that Wheldon may perhaps be drawing analogies, like many slave narratives do, to a sort of Middle Passage. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs has a similar sort of passage. Harriet's years in the crawl space are her Middle Passage. I think that the Narrator's is much more of a psychihc passage. His witnessing the lynching is a massive strain upon his ego and identity. It is a subjugation of sorts. After this Middle Passage, he finally submits to the will of public perceptions, or what he thinks are public perceptions, and joins the white majority. He "gives up his heritage for a mass of pottage." This is his form of subjugation and slavery. In this way, Johnson demonstrates that though blacks have been officially freed from bondage, the reality of their state of affairs has not changed by much.
ReplyDeleteLooking back at the novel as a whole,I realized that Johnson was not only trying to give us an insider glimpse in to the lives of both white and black men of the time. He was showing us that race is not what gives us our culture, our experiences and our education gives us our culture.
ReplyDelete"My Millionare" showed Auto-Ex the world by taking him to Europe, he intoduced him to a world of privilege. He "made him white." This added to the fact that Auto-Ex was raised as a proper little aristocrat and had not a clue that he had any colored blood in him, even though his mother, whom he lived with, was the colored parent proves that color is not what gives a person their worth or their culture. We have all heard and sometimes ourselves used the expression, "he's the whitest black guy," or "he's the blackest white guy," and their respective whiteness or blackness has nothing to do with one's actual race or color. I believe Johnson knew this and used his fictional autobiography as a kind of parable to express this opinion. As for whether or not we are to feel pity for Auto-Ex, I do not. At any point in his life if he felt he wanted to become part of his mothers people he could have, him choosing to opt out of the greatest struggle of his race and to be white does not evoke pity in my mind, it evokes a sense of cowardice and desertion.
I believe Johnson knew a person's worth was more than skin deep and he eloquently uses this autobiography to prove that to us, all the while showing us an insiders glimpse into life on both sides of the playground.