The Ending of The White Boy Shuffle

As we discussed the ending of the book in class today and the very dark/depressing development it took, I found myself thinking about how great of a change the story had taken in comparison to the beginning of the book or even just a few chapters before. Like we said in class, it seemed like Gunnar was leading a generally happy and successful life with basketball, poetry, and his friendships with Scoby, Psycho Loco and Yoshiko. As we near the end of the novel, Beatty portrays the idea of the racism Gunnar sees and experiences being so much greater than him, almost to the point that its overwhelming. Gunnar feels powerless in the greater scheme of society and its inherent racist qualities, the only success (“win”) being suicide and not giving “them” the satisfaction. As we analyzed this final part of the book and began to realize the greater theme Beatty is portraying through the novel, I noticed a few similarities it shared with Invisible Man and the ever-changing identity and realization of the narrator.

Like we have mentioned before, both novels begin with a narrator having already experienced most of his life, telling his story to the reader. In both stories, we see a gradual progression of an underlying idea of the individual being powerless (or invisible) to society and unable to make an impact. Throughout Invisible Man, the narrator thinks he is making a difference and changing his identity, but by the end of the book, has realized he is completely invisible and is just a small part of a greater, unchangeable, racist system. Gunnar, although his realization is less gradual and much more prominent towards the end of the novel, also begins to realize the blatant racism in society (especially among his peers at the many high schools he attended as well as college and the groups/extracurricular activities he participated in), and by the end, he too is “tired of thrashing around in the muck and not getting anywhere.” In a way, each character’s “solution” to the problem they have realized is also somewhat similar as well. The narrator of Invisible Man feels that by secluding himself from society, he is able to escape the racism and identity society places upon him, and as long as he stays there, he is “free.” Gunnar sees the dynamic more as a win or lose situation, but would most likely agree that society is the problem and the only escape is getting away from it. He has been “losing” his entire life, and the only way to “win” is to give them no pleasure and commit suicide, putting him “out of his misery.”

One additional thing to note is the time period in which each book was written. Invisible Man published in the 1950s, and The White Boy Shuffle, published very recently in 1996 sharing this similarity of the deeper theme of racism in society serves to show that this problem is ever present and most likely will be continue to be present for a while still. Beatty even mentions the Rodney King incident and Gunnar’s reaction of shock and complete surprise to its result as a reference to this problem in society. This inclusion sort of hints at the fact that it would seem like something should have changed by then, but really hadn’t.

            

A Few Thoughts on Richard Wright’s Critique

            As we discussed in class earlier this week, following the publication of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Richard Wright became one of the most prominent critiques, mentioning several aspects of Hurston’s writing in his own article “Between Laughter and Tears.” Wright criticized Hurston in writing, saying that “Hurston can write, but her prose is cloaked in that facile sensuality that has dogged the Negro expression since the days of Phillis Wheatley.” He goes on to say “Her dialogue manages to catch the psychological movements of the Negro folk-mind in their pure simplicity, but that’s as far as it goes.” Wright seemed to dislike the fact that Hurston’s writing included very little about protest and social commentary, which in his perspective, was “proper” and “necessary” for black literature (at the time). He comments on the fact that her dialogue only adds to the flowery, idealistic setting and goes no further than that. In my perspective, while some of Wrights points hold value, I think he overgeneralized black writing in that it all had to be protest literature. However, it does seem like Hurston avoided making her novel about protest altogether, purposefully or not, making Wright partly correct.

            As Mr. Mitchell assigned the ten minute writing prompt in class asking our opinion on Wright’s critique, like I mentioned before, I held a sort of neutral stance.

In my point of view, its true that protest was not the largest point Hurston was trying to get across, instead, she focused more on the strong character of Janie and her many marriages as well as capturing the general setting of the small southern town of Eatonville and the dynamic there. Hurston included the character of Ms. Tyler and other minor events that seemed related to protest and a social commentary of the time, but we know after finishing the book, that these events were very much in the minority. In this aspect, Wright is accurate in identifying that compared to his novel Native Son and other black literature of the time such as Invisible Man, Their Eyes Were Watching God doesn’t focus on protest as much.

However, I think there is a line to how much of Wrights critique is valid. In Wrights perspective, the non-inclusion of protest is a problem and a fault in Hurston’s novel. While the inclusion of protest is in fact minor, by no means does this suggest a fault in Hurston’s writing. Hurston has a seemingly different point to make than Wright, and in my perspective, this doesn’t make the book any worse. Additionally, Hurston may very well have had protest in mind when writing her novel, just not the same emphasis on racial protest Wright focuses on in his novels. Using a strong independent woman as the main character that chooses what to do on her own --concerning her many marriages and actions in general-- is itself a protest to traditional literature at the time and could have been the “deeper theme” Hurston was trying to make in her novel. It’s also possible that Hurston had no “deeper meaning” about protest to make and instead wanted to write a novel capturing the realistic Southern lifestyle of the town, which she went in such detail to describe. Either way, even though Wright is correct in some of his assumptions, some of his larger points about the inclusion of protest in my point of view aren’t valid.