Universität Trier Fachbereich II Anglistik/Amerikanistik (Literaturwissenschaft) The Treatment of Racism in the African American Novel of Satire Schriftliche Prüfungsarbeit zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde Vorgelegt von: Sebastian Fett, M.A. Im Zillgen 47 56321 Rhens 02628/986292 [email protected] Diese Arbeit wurde betreut von: Prof. Dr. Gerd Hurm, Erstkorrektor Prof. Dr. Norbert Platz, Zweitkorrektor 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have been possible without the help of a great number of people. I am deeply indebted to the critical assistance, patience and support of Prof. Dr. Gerd Hurm. Moreover, I would like to send my gratitude to Jan Martin Herbst for his friendship, great sense of humor and helpful proofreading. Most importantly, however, I thank my family and particularly Wolfgang, Maria, Christian, Daniel, and Marie-Christine for their ongoing encouragement and care; and especially Sylvia for helping me to keep my head up and focus on the things that matter the most. 3 To the memory of Winston Napier and Wilhelm J. Fett 4 Table of Contents I. Introduction 6 II. Toward an Outline of Satire 13 2.1 Identifying Satire: Between Wit and Invective 18 2.2 The Transcending Power of Laughter 25 2.3 The Satirist: Moralizing without Morals 29 2.4 From Signifying to Satiric Novel 36 2.5 Subverting (Racist) Social Identity 44 2.6 Passing, Melodrama, and the Birth of the 46 African American Novel of Satire III. Dismantling the Capitalist Machinery: George Schuyler’s 50 Black No More 3.1 The Birth of the African American Novel of Satire 50 3.2 Bridging the Racial Divide 53 3.3 Satiric Estrangement 59 3.4 The Color of Money 62 3.5 Demystifying the “American Dream” 70 3.6 Between Marxism and Misanthropy 78 3.7 Subverting Propaganda 86 3.8 Black No More as “Socially Referential Satire” 91 3.9 Beyond Cultural Specificity 96 IV. Inside the Capitalist Machinery: Charles Wright’s The Wig 102 4.1 The Erosion of Certainty 102 4.2 Lester Jefferson: The Broken Authorial Lens 106 4.3 Reductio Ad Absurdum: Double-Consciousness Revisited 110 5 4.4 Mass Media Manipulation 117 4.5 The Greed Society 126 4.6 The Socioeconomic Machinery at Work 131 4.7 Entropic Satire 139 4.8 Entropy on the Inside 148 4.9 Black Satire 151 V. The Epistemology of Race: Percival Everett’s Erasure 159 5.1 Monk Ellison: The Construction of Reality 159 5.2 Talking the Talk: The Demise of a Family 165 5.3 My Pafology: Between Parody and Satire 170 5.4 Ellison’s Satire: The Author and the Audience 176 5.5 Debunking the Literary World 182 5.6 The Power and Politics of Representation 185 5.7 Television: Broadcasting Binaries 190 5.8 Manufacturing the Raced Author 203 5.9 Everett’s Satire: The Narrator and the Novelist 209 VI. The African American Novel of Satire: 216 The Versatile Weapon VII. Bibliography 222 VIII. Appendix 233 IX. 8.1 Zusammenfassung der Arbeit in deutscher Sprache 233 X. 8.2 Erklärung über die verwendeten Hilfsmittel 236 6 I. Introduction No tyrant, no tyrannous idea ever came crashing to earth but it was first wounded with the shafts of satire: no free man, no free idea ever rose to the heights but it endured them. It is not that men love to roll in the mud, but that they know how, out of their agony and bloody sweat, truth and beauty are forged, and no falseness may be set up in their stead. It touches their honour, and to defend it they have no sharper weapon than laughter and ridicule.1 In light of Gilbert Cannan’s brief summary of satire’s function and approach, the question of why the African American community would resort to it in its ongoing struggles with racism seems all but answered. Yet, the versatile nature of satire is much more complex and elusive than the above quote suggests. From their everyday encounters with satire, most people know that it can be fierce and unforgiving, witty and ambiguous, and everything in between. One could argue that satire’s manifestations are as numerous as the subjects it confronts. Such diversity of satiric guises explains the considerable amount of secondary literature the field of satire has generated over time. Countless essays and books have been written on satire and many a critical argument has been fought over satire’s delicate relationships with related concepts such as comedy, irony, and wit.2 Considering the sheer volume of pages contributed to the subject, one might assume the definitions of satire and its various components have been sufficiently determined. Following an assumption of this nature, one may then ask why the presence of the African American satiric novel demands a thorough revision of the aforementioned sources. To begin with, the disparity between different definitions and conceptions of satire is not to be underestimated. Especially questions regarding satire’s generic or modal nature and its didactic qualities have received much controversial attention. Furthermore, while the works of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope have long been viewed as the epitomization of satire, the African American satiric novelist has remained virtually non-existent in literary studies. It 1 Gilbert Cannan, Satire (London: Folcroft, 1974) 13. 2 The enormous amount of secondary literature the phenomenon of satire has produced will be presented and discussed in detail in the second chapter. The key works in the field are the studies by Cannan; Elliott; Feinberg; Knight; Kernan; Weisenburger; Worcester. 7 is thus both necessary and valuable to reconsider the scholarship satire has received in an attempt to delineate the satirist’s playing field and, eventually, to arrive at a functional theoretical framework for the study of the African American satiric novel. In fact, Darryl Dickson-Carr’s 2001 volume African American Satire: The Sacredly Profane Novel is the only monography to date that directly addresses the African American novel of satire as a distinct literary event. In analyzing the treatment of racism in the African American novel of satire, it stands to reason that the results and claims studies on eighteenth century British satire have produced as well as more recent theoretical models of satire cannot be applied inconsiderately to the African American satiric novelist, who approaches his craft from a unique social and artistic position. Suffering from an oppressive sociopolitical system, George Schuyler and his successors operate within the modern and postmodern continuum, an era often perceived as fragmented and inscrutable, to the extent that it has often united men in shared victimhood, and has revealed absolutes, such as truth and meaning, to be unstable or even non- existent.3 In this climate of skepticism and disbelief, readers can hardly expect to encounter undivided figures that embody the popular attributes so commonplace in the satiric works of Pope or Swift. It is out of question that useful clues and universal features of satire, which are crucial to any analysis of the phenomenon, are to be found in the countless studies the phenomenon of satire has generated over the centuries. However, a look at widespread notions and findings on satire justifies the need for reconsideration through the lens of the African American experience. A case in point is Leonard Feinberg’s assertion on the preeminence of amusement in satire. From Feinberg’s perspective, “satire may criticize evil but the didactic elements are incidental, not primary. The essential quality is entertainment.”4 Finding the flaw in Feinberg’s statement does not demand extensive knowledge of either the importance of satire in African American discourse or the destructive power of racism. To presume that the African American satiric novelist can afford the luxury of placing entertainment first in his quarrels with racism is misguided. Furthermore, studies on formal verse satire 3 See Hans Bertens, The Idea of the Postmodern: A History (London: Routledge, 1996). 4 Leonard Feinberg, Introduction to Satire (Ames: Iowa State UP, 1967) 7-8. 8 have led to the notion that the satiric victim must not lack the faculty of conscience. W. H. Auden thus elaborates that satire commonly “flourishes in a homogenous society with a common conception of the moral law, for satirist and audience must agree as to how normal people can be expected to behave, and in times of relative stability and contentment, for satire cannot deal with serious evil and suffering.”5 For any society infested with racism to be referred to as homogenous is questionable at best; for racism vigorously perpetuates a hierarchically heterogeneous social and racial structure. Moreover, that racism does, in fact, qualify as “serious evil and suffering” is by no means dependent on subjective estimation. Ultimately, as the subsequent analysis of three exemplary works will reveal, it is indeed possible for a gifted artist to point satire’s thorns and barbs at such an evil as racism. In addition, it is problematic to identify the African American author as the stiff conservative Robert C. Elliott implies in his studies on the origins of satire. Elliott contests that “the satirist, it is true, claims to be conservative, to be using his art to shore up the foundations of the established order; and insofar as one can place satirists politically, I suspect that a large majority are what would be called conservative.”6 To refute Elliott, one only needs to view Schuyler’s successors who remain victims of a society plagued by racism, and therefore cannot help but launch their satiric darts from the fringes of a society that produces conservative accounts of the life of its members. Finally, a key notion in satiric criticism is summarized by Peter Thorpe, who stresses a satirist’s ambivalence by asserting that “the satirist is secretly attracted by the very target he attacks.”7 To argue that the African American satirist is attracted to racism, among other targets to be identified in the subsequent analyses, is controversial.