Paul Beatty’s White Boy Shuffle has been an incredibly enjoyable yet different read so far. Gunnar Kaufman’s funny, sarcastic, and self aware way of storytelling combined with the post Civil Rights Movement setting, gives the story a unique atmosphere. In the prologue, Gunnar tells that he is (or has to be) the messiah of black Americans, which is in stark contrast to the troublemaking elementary school student living in a majority white Santa Monica we find in succeeding chapters, just like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Invisible Man’s narrator and Gunnar are both even viewed as “harmless” or model black people by the whites in their communities. Where White Boy Shuffle differs from Ellison’s novel, is the initial mindsets of the protagonists. At the beginning of Invisible Man, the narrator seems to be presenting the reader with passive observations of everything happening around him, or is so focused on one particular thing (e.g. the speech or keeping his scholarship) that he doesn’t really provide his own input or perspectives. Gunnar, however, is much more apparent in showing the reader what is on his mind. In Chapter 1, when Gunnar is describing his family's history, he shows particular shame in how his father reacts to his white coworkers racist comments/jokes, deciding for himself that he wasn't going to laugh. This is the first instance of a young Gunnar showing a more independent, observant and thoughtful mindset. In Chapter 2, when Ms. Cegeny gives her colorblindness lecture and students list things like the justice system as “colorblind processes in America,” Gunnar chooses to reply with simply, “Dogs.” His response emphasizes the foolishness and ignorance of the students’ answers and the lecture in general. His reluctance to do things like even bring up black heroes he read about to his friend, David, shows he has a long ways to go until he reaches his “messiah” status. I am looking forward to seeing how the experiences he has living in West LA will change his perspectives.
I agree with your evaluation that a fundamental difference between the young Narrator and Gunnar is their consciousness at the beginning of their respective novels. In Invisible Man, we see the Narrator's consciousness develop throughout the course of the book -- going from internalizing the Jim Crow System to actively rejecting society. However, Beatty starts from a much different perspective with Gunnar who we see immediately consciously evaluating his own actions -- for example, when he says that he doesn't like to make fun of his father (unlike the rest of his family) for being an "Uncle Tom," perhaps because he so directly related to him. And so, "while the apple doesn't usually fall far from the tree, [he's] going to try and roll a bit off the hill."
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing up the prologue. To be honest I forgot all about because we haven't talked about it in class since the beginning and with everything happening in the novel it's easy to forget the very beginning. It's true that Gunner isn't in the "messiah" mindset. He's actually quite far from it. When he's recognized at BU for being the person behind all of these poems, he hates the attention that he receives and proceeds to strip in hopes of discouraging his followers, which only encourages them even more. But through this scene, I think I get a sense of what Gunner meant in the prologue when he said, "Wherever I travel, a long queue of baby black goslings files behind... (1)"
ReplyDeleteReading this after finishing the book was definitely interesting. The relationship with his father from beginning to end is strange because I wonder if the shame about his father is still there after his father kills himself. Not that Gunnar has a lot of time left to be ashamed or not. I also liked your connections to Invisible Man. While I read this book I didn't really think about it in context with any other novel so it's interesting to connect them now.
ReplyDelete