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African American Existential Heroes: Narrative Struggles for Authenticity City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2020 African American Existential Heroes: Narrative Struggles for Authenticity Michael Cotto The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3615 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] AFRICAN AMERICAN EXISTENTIAL HEROES: NARRATIVE STRUGGLES FOR AUTHENTICITY by MICHAEL COTTO A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2020 ii © 2019 MICHAEL COTTO All Rights Reserved iii African American Existential Heroes: Narrative Struggles for Authenticity by Michael Cotto This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. December 19, 2019 Robert Reid-Pharr Date Chair of Examining Committee December 19, 2019 Kandice Chuh Date Executive Officer Supervisory Committee Professor Kandice Chuh Professor Linda Martin Alcoff THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv ABSTRACT African American Existential Heroes: Narrative Struggles for Authenticity by Michael Cotto Academic Advisor: Robert Reid-Pharr African American Existential Heroes: Narrative Struggles for Authenticity argues for the development of existential authenticities and their impact on African American self-identity constructions in three African American literary classics: Richard Wright’s The Outsider, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain. For that purpose, the introduction puts forward the aforementioned topic; defines the major terms, authenticity, existentialism, and African Americanness; identifies the three texts to be studied; explicates its methodology; studies the anagnorisis of each text in relation to the existential crisis; accounts for the existential philosophers used, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Soren Kierkegaard; and then elaborates on the overall structure of the dissertation, an introduction, three chapters with three sections each, and a conclusion. In Chapter One, “Richard Wright’s The Outsider and African American Existential Authenticity,” the dissertation centers on the main character’s inauthenticity as expressed through his existential crisis: his fanatical desire to be free. What is revealed, though, is his monomaniacal desire to have power over everyone and everything that leads to a destructive nihilism. The study then follows how the main character overcomes his v inauthenticity and how it impacts his sense of being an African American. In Chapter Two, “Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: Invisibility and African American Existential Authenticity,” the focus is on the main character’s existential inauthenticity that comes primarily from his invisibility to himself. The examination then turns to how his inauthenticity is resolved through his realization of the visibility-invisibility dialectic that impacts his African American self-making. Chapter Three, “James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain and African American Existential Authenticity,” analyzes the existential inauthenticity that comes from the fourteen-year-old main character’s existential dread and despair. The ostensible impediments for his self-making are mainly two: his sense of wickedness and his perceived sin, which are found to come from his struggle with his stepfather and his incipient homosexuality. The analysis, then, details his development towards authenticity as a result of his experience with what Pentecostal Christians call the Holy Spirit, which gives the main character visions of an ecumenically loving God that impacts his self-making as an African American. The conclusion presents a meditative summation of the dissertation and takes into account the perennial significance of African American existential analysis and the need to utilize it for further analysis of other African American literary works produced before and after the twentieth century. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have written this dissertation without the help, support, and love from the following persons: Professor Richard Blot, who sustained me with his wisdom throughout the journey; Professor David Hyman, whose empathy and amazing friendship tethered me through many tears of anger and frustration; Professor Paula Loscocco, who woke me up from the matrix; My wonderful colleagues at Lehman College, especially Professors James Anderson, Bret Maney, and Olivia Moy, who always encouraged me; My new colleagues at Lehman College, especially Professors Melissa Castillo-Planas, Vani Kannan, and Sophia Hsu, (The Lehman Squad!) who showed me what it is really like to be a scholar; Professors William Pohle, Francis Kearns, and Jack Kligerman, who make me proud to have studied with them; the indefatigable Lehman English Office Crew: Anyelina Fermin, Jwendlen Nivens, and Miguel Brito, who always provided a reassuring pit stop of assistance with humor; and my immediate family: Mark, Kevin, Leonard, Levar, Alan, David, and Little Sarah! We did it! I want to especially send love to my Big Brother, Mark Anthony, who passed away this last November. Love you, Dear Brother! Always and Forever! Love you, Mom (Sarah) and Dad (Alex)! Love you, Indra Khemraj! Love you one and all! vii Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One: Richard Wright’s The Outsider and African American Existential Authenticity 16 Section One: A Pseudo Ubermensch as a Deified Being of Inauthenticity 16 Section Two: The Existential Authentic Hero and “The Promise” 35 Section Three: Cross’s “Promise” and the African American Racial Construct 51 Chapter Two: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: Invisibility and African American Existential Authenticity 69 Section One: The Invisible Man’s Inauthentic Non-Individuation 69 Section Two: The Invisible Man’s Authentic Individuation 88 Section Three: The Invisible Man’s Visible Invisibilities and the African American Racial Construct 104 Chapter Three: James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain and African American Existential Authenticity 121 Section One: John Grimes’s Struggle with Existential Inauthenticity 121 Section Two: John Grimes’s Transformation into The Newly Anointed Saint 135 Section Three: John’s Life and the African American Racial Construct 151 Conclusion 162 1 African American Existential Heroes: Narrative Struggles for Authenticity The purpose of the dissertation will be to study three classic African American novels, specifically Richard Wright’s The Outsider (1953), Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), and James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), as existential arguments in order to show that each author produces his own version of the African American hero’s struggle for existential authenticity. With authenticity, I am initially adopting Heidegger’s definition of the term, which The Oxford Companion to Philosophy sums up as “The condition of those, according to Heidegger, who understand the existential structure of their lives. Heidegger held that each of us acquires an identity from our situation—our family, culture, etc. Usually, we just absorb this identity uncritically, but to let one’s values and goals remain fixed without critical reflection on them is ‘inauthentic’.”1 To shorten Heidegger’s distinction between the existentially inauthentic and authentic in the dissertation, however, I will label the former as existentially unconscious (or having a They-Self) and the latter as existentially conscious (or having an I-Self). With regard to using particular philosophical terms without definitions or explication so far, I admit that I am very much getting ahead of myself. That is, what exactly does existentialism mean? When one considers Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous critique of the term that “The word is now so loosely applied to so many things in so many ways 1 Keep in mind that adopting Heidegger’s definition of the term refers to my using his concept of authenticity as a tentatively accepted working definition from which I anticipate a significant difference, and thus a challenge, from the proposed works of the aforementioned three authors. 2 that it no longer means anything at all,” one should know how extremely important it is to specify its definition. First, it is important to clarify what Sartre means by his critique: it is not the case that existentialism “no longer means anything at all” in that the word refers to “nothing.” No, the quote means quite the opposite of that: what it actually means is that “nothing” means “no thing” so that existentialism has too many definitions to denote any particular thing. Knowing that existentialism means too many things, or that it suffers from what linguists diagnose as polysemy, which definition should one use? Should one simply use Sartre’s famous “existence precedes essence,” from his work? Many scholars have used that phrase to define existentialism. In fact, this Sartrean definition has been used so many times and in so many ways that many now equate it and Sartre with existentialism itself. However, there are at least three problems with using the Sartrean phrase as the definition. First, many existentialists wholeheartedly reject it. This
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