"AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-COLORED MAN" (JAMES WELDON JOHNSON).   Term Paper ID:24162 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines use of irony in portrayal of mixed-race character's awakening in novel based on author's life.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines use of irony in portrayal of mixed-race character's awakening in novel based on author's life. Paper Introduction: James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a book of irony upon irony. Not a true autobiography but a novel based loosely on the author's life, the book portrays the life of a man of mixed black and white heritage who undergoes a series of unexpected reversals of consciousness largely based on his racial experiences. The protagonist appears to be white and is raised as a white of some socioeconomic privilege. His primary awakenings take him from his white upbringing into the world of blacks, where he comes to recognize and appreciate his black heritage, and finally back to the white world after his abandonment of that black heritage. Ironically, however, this series of awakenings leaves the protagonist as confused about his identity at the end of the book as he was in the beginning. The bulk of the book's ironies are rooted in the protagonist's almost Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. As we have seen in hisconcluding remarks above, he is never able to achieve that goal to anymeasure of lasting stability or satisfaction. At the same time,these mental gymnastics are intended to protect him from his pain, whichthey may do, but they also keep him rom fully living his life emotionally.Ironically, his intellectual efforts to reach self-awareness ultimatelyturn him into the self-unaware man we find at the end of the book. His marriage ishaunted by this inability: I was in constant fear that she would discover in me some shortcoming which she would unconsciously attribute to my blood rather than to a failing of human nature. This passage is rife with theambivalence which marks the entire book, the result of the protagonist'smixed racial make-up and the fact that his responses to that racial realityare based not in emotion but in mental evasion. Thereality he knew is no longer real, and the reality of the black world is atthat point utterly alien, if not hated by the boy. One of his apparent awakenings encapsulates the ironies of the book.He engages in a telling conservation from which he makes the followingconclusion: . . . His life from that pointon will be a struggle to forge his own reality. . The protagonist's ultimate dropping outof society is a sign not of transcendence of that fear, but of his completesurrender to it. that [whites] are unwilling to open certain doors of opportunity and to accord certain treatment to ten million aspiring, education- and-property-acquiring people (121). The protagonistis a man who is trying to work out his place in the world, but finally hefinds no place of his own and must settle for a compromise position whichclearly does not satisfy or give him any real peace: My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet . James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is abook of irony upon irony. . The man's story is a tragedy because he is trapped between the twoworlds, never truly a part of either, and his situation is beyond hiscontrol. To be "part black" in the Southin the post-Civil war era was to be "all black." The boy rushes home to hismother and asks her, "Tell me, mother, am I a nigger" (12). The essential irony of hislife, again, is that he is trying to come to grips with emotional traumasin his life using mental tools which prevent him from ever coming to gripswith those traumas. His primary awakenings take him from his white upbringing intothe world of blacks, where he comes to recognize and appreciate his blackheritage, and finally back to the white world after his abandonment of thatblack heritage. Theprotagonist, for all his obvious brilliance, is blinded by his mentalactivity from seeing that it is far easier to change "actual conditions"than it is the "mental attitude" of whites. But no cloud ever came to mar our life together. His tragedy is that all his effort, all hisachievement, all his education and brilliance, have left him as lost asever in his inability to transcend his own racial make-up. Hisintellectualization renders him incapable of experiencing his own life in away which would give him some sort of liberation from his demons. Books and music can certainly be consolation, butthey are not substitutes for human company. The burden of the question is . When the protagonist does manage to perceive the truth, he isincapable of applying that insight to his own life. . The protagonistappears to be white and is raised as a white of some socioeconomicprivilege. We may grow to include some of them among the trivial incidents of childhood . In fact, however,ironically, it is not the mind which must be changed but the heart. By theend of the book, when he makes that choice, he has come to intellectuallyappreciate his black heritage, but his subsequent abandonment of thatheritage strikes the sympathetic reader as a true tragedy. He says he "no cloud" marred hismarriage, but how serene can a marriage be when one partner is in "constantfear" of judgment from the other? . Laws can be passed and enforcedwhich relatively easily change those conditions, but a mental attitude---such as his own, for example---is not so easily altered, as his own lifebest demonstrates. The ironies which serve as the turning points of the book are rootedin the protagonist's unorthodox responses to his situation. From thatmoment forward, the protagonist lives ion shaky ground psychologically. I have gradually dropped out of social life (153). He is able to achieve the success he finds in lifeprecisely because o the relatively privileged conditions which prevail inhis life. These are the tragedies of life. His white appearance adds to thisbelief. . The main difficulty of the race question does not lie so much in the actual condition of the blacks as it does in the mental attitude of the whites; and a mental attitude, especially one not based on truth, cam be changed more easily than actual conditions. . For example, he isaccurate when he writes of the worth of "old slave songs (133)," but thisperception comes just pages before he abandons the black heritage which isrepresented by such songs. . Work CitedJohnson, James Weldon. . . . The bulk of the book's ironies are rooted in theprotagonist's almost obstinate determination to discover his own reality, adetermination which in fact prevents him from such a discovery because ofhis obsessive intellectualization. However, instead of accepting that myth with respectto himself, he throws himself into books, music and education, proving themyth wrong. . He increasingly comes to know andappreciate the black culture and its contributions to society: "I felt leapwithin me pride that I was colored; and I began to form wild dreams ofbringing glory and honor to the Negro race" (32). He is trying to deal with his own pain by putting it in the contextof human suffering in general, but such intellectualizing merely preventshim from actually dealing with his own personal pain. The protagonistwould likely disagree vehemently with this statement, but it is unlikelythat he would show any emotion in doing so. Ironically, however, this series of awakenings leaves theprotagonist as confused about his identity at the end of the book as he wasin the beginning. The protagonist interprets the world and his own experience throughhis mind, and he therefore believes that the mind, and changing the mind ofwhites, are the answers to society's racial problems. Ironies abound in the protagonist's short- and long-term responses tothe discovery of his black heritage. His original views toward blacks are, ironically, altereddramatically by that educational effort. . The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. That is, he is able to achieve an education and property becausehe has enjoyed conditions which are far superior to those of most otherblacks, He believes that such achievement, such education and property,have liberated him from the oppression most blacks of his time experience.In fact, he has become not liberated by his mind but imprisoned in it, animprisonment which prevents him from transcending racial limitations. For example, he analyzes the traumatic discovery of hisblack heritage in abstract generalities: In the life of everyone there is a limited number of unhappy experiences. but these, too, as well as the bitter experiences and disappointments of mature years, are the tragedies of life (13- 14). One irony is that the protagonist's analytical mind, his constantintellectualizing and philosophizing, which he uses to try to control hislife, play a central role in his consistent lack of control. . . Not a true autobiography but a novel basedloosely on the author's life, the book portrays the life of a man of mixedblack and white heritage who undergoes a series of unexpected reversals ofconsciousness largely based on his racial experiences. In other words, the protagonist claims he does not desire to beotherwise, but it is clear that he does in fact have such a desire,repressed only by his love for his children. He is a manwho tries to understand what is happening to him by analyzing his life indepth, but that mental activity merely keeps him from truly understandingand experiencing himself and his situation emotionally. He is at first horrified, for, livingin the South, he has been racially indoctrinated to believe in theinferiority of blacks. One day in school he is suddenlyinformed indirectly that he is part black. The protagonist actually recognizes this situation, but he fails tounderstand it even as he is naming it: "There were two immediate results ofmy forced loneliness: I began to find company in books, and greaterpleasure in music" (16). . In fact, it is he himself who unconsciously---and consciously---judges himself for his black heritage. He does indeed make the final choice to marry a white woman andlive in the white world, turning his back on the black world, but by thattime it has become clear that personal and social forces beyond his controlhave rendered him helpless to find the racial home he seeks. . . NewYork: Penguin, 199 .----------------------- 1 He believes he belongs to a world which he discovers is not hisafter all, and the shock is traumatic. He is raised asa white and believes that he is white. 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 (154). I no longer have the same fear for myself of my secret's being found out, for . If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.