The Quest of the Silver Fleece

For a novel steeped in African-American conjure and Southern folk belief, Du Bois's first novel promotes an ambivalence with regards to the conjure tradition. Like his second novel, Dark Princess, it is a romance in which the struggle of black characters against racism is embedded in the trials of the two young lovers. However, without exotic Indian princesses and the theme of the global color line, The Quest of the Silver Fleece focuses on African-American characters and their white counterparts in the struggle against the post-Reconstruction political economy of Alabama, with only a few references to the connections between the oppressed colored masses of the US and colonized peoples elsewhere.

The kingdom of cotton is thoroughly analyzed here, demonstrating precisely how "slavery by another name" persisted after the Civil War in places like the fictional Tooms County, Alabama. The combination of the Southern planter aristocracy and Northern capitalists combining their forces to consolidate the exploitation of black sharecroppers, the denial of education for black children, and the violation of black womanhood due to their rape and sexual exploitation by white men are constants here. Part of the story is set in the nation's capital, where the alliance of Northern capital and the Southern aristocracy asserts itself in the Republican party's opportunistic and limited support of black civil rights. Again, like Dark Princess, Bles Alwyn, akin to Matthew in the later novel, is paired with a light-skinned and cynical black woman, but cannot abandon his ideals too long and eventually returns to the South. 

As a romance novel with some of the socialist themes one can expect from Du Bois (hopes for eventual collaboration of blacks and poor whites against their capitalist exploiters, critiques of industry and monopoly capitalism), Bles and the other protagonist, Zora, build their own kingdom after clearing the swamp in which Zora's mother, Elspeth, resided. They clear the swamp with the help of black tenants, splitting the profits with them to fund the school started by Miss Smith and expand services and settlement-work. Thus, a combination of sorts of black nationalist assertions of self-rule, communal land ownership, and utopian romance come together through the union of a "wild child" of the swamp and Bles, who represents the larger world of knowledge and higher ideals.

This is where the ambivalence with regards to the "half-forgotten heathen cult" comes in. It is through a magic cotton seed of Elspeth that the swamp first produces the "Silver Fleece," a metaphor for black authority and independence in the midst of the planter domination of the Cresswells and other former slaveholders. Zora, although not completely aware of her heritage, hears Elspeth claim descent from an African king, and she witnesses the bizarre world of the swamp, its charm, and the "dreams." As a former child of the swamp, removed from social norms, her quest of knowledge, largely initiated by Bles, culminates in her central leadership of the plan to save the Smith school for black children and clear the swamp for an egalitarian farm. In the course of doing this, she nearly fails and is rejected by the local preacher, Jones, as a child of a "voodoo woman." 

Nonetheless, she believes "the Way" consists of one's actions, not in one's faith, so she takes the initiative and eventually triumphs. She places her faith in human actions and solidarity among the great black masses, not in any Christian God or half-remembered African spirits. In this regard, she brings to mind the eponymous heroine of Scott Joplin's opera, Treemonisha. Like Zora, Treemonisha embodies knowledge and becomes a messianic figure, a black Athena to guide the lost masses ever onward in education, progress, and the realization of their own potential. However, in Joplin's "ragtime opera," conjure and hoodoo are represented as negative influences preying on the superstition and ignorance of the emancipated black masses. Further, whites are nearly absent in Joplin's opera, whereas Du Bois's novel features multiple white characters and the political economy of Jim Crow to show the tremendous obstacles to the agency of African-Americans. 

I would conclude that, for Du Bois, who novel reflects a Greek myth and African-American conjure, the "pagan" past can lay the seeds for a future, but only if they don't lead to a fatalism among the oppressed. One thinks of Jacques Roumain and The Masters of the Dew here, although Du Bois never comes close to celebrating "voodoo" in the manner of Haitian indigénisme. Perhaps The Quest of the Silver Fleece can be construed as a transitional work in which African-derived spirituality was portrayed ambivalently but not denounced, as would be expected within the civilizationist discourse of black nationalist thought prior to the "primitivism" of the interwar years. 

George Schuyler's Black Empire

George Schuyler's Black Empire, two novels of serial fiction printed together in a single volume, tell the magnificent tale of black unity and genius triumphing against imperialism and white supremacy in the 1930s. Using science fiction elements and the charged context of fascism, communism, and capitalism during that tumultuous decade, Schuyler's fantastic story of Carl Slater's involvement with Dr. Belsidus's Black Internationale is a tour-de-force. Satirizing elements of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism, such as Garvey, Schuyler's ruthless Belsidus brings together the best minds of the Negro race to construct new technology, build a Temple of Love religion drawing on Ancient Egypt, conquer Africa, and defeat Europe. Belsidus's 'redemption' of Africa, however, is oppressive as it mercilessly punishes and kills those suspected of betrayal, installs Belsidus as dictator, and even imposes new diets and cultural practices on local African populations. Thus, a form of "authoritarian collectivism," identified by Moses as a pattern in black nationalist politics, appears throughout the text. Surely part of it is justified in this fantastic tale because of the extreme conditions against Belsidus and blacks across the world in the 1930s, but in some sense, Belsidus resembles the Barclay and the Americo-Liberians he overthrows. Viewed in that light, one can see how this novel was clearly influenced by Garvey, as well as possibly influenced Elijah Muhammad and perhaps Sun Ra, not to mention earlier 19th century black nationalists and the redemptionist narrative of Africa within Africana thought. As entertainment, this "hokum" of Schuyler's is irresistibly exciting and one can forgive some of the lapses in chronology or sequence. My only real question is, what was going on in the West Indies? Does the Black Empire of Africa plan on liberating the West Indies and India? Delegates from those parts of the world come to Kakata at the novel's conclusion...

Kindred

Octavia Butler's Kindred has been a fascinating neo-slave narrative that fits in quite well with my recent viewing of 12 Years A Slave. Matter of fact, Kindred is ripe for a film adaptation with its strong female protagonist and unique take on the slave narrative tradition. This book appeals to those in African American literature, speculative fiction, and historical fiction. The timelessness of the film and its specific take on the black women slave experience, as well as its portrait of domestic or house slaves is noteworthy. While being a believable portrayal of the antebellum South, the use of science fiction elements gives Butler more flexibility here, something impossible from historical slave narratives.

Song of Solomon

"On Wednesday the 18th of February, 1931, I will take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings. Please forgive me, I loved you all."

Toni Morrison's Sula

     Toni Morrison’s Sula, though more readable than Beloved, lacks the moving plot of the latter. Nonetheless, Morrison’s former work is easier to read because it is less repetitive, although it also shares many commonalities with Beloved. For example, elements of magical realism are present in both novels, especially in regards to the Deweys in Sula who never age despite decades of time going by. Like Beloved, Sula also focuses on race and gender through the lens of black women and the unique experiences they face as black and female in a patriarchal racist society. Indeed, race and gender and black women protagonists seem to be a common thread in many of Morrison’s works, although the story of a slave who killed her baby daughter rather than have her live in slavery is far more powerful in Beloved than the story of Sula, a sexually liberated black woman in small-town Ohio who rejects social conventions. In the end, both novels are essential for fans of Toni Morrison, and should be sought by those who care about African-American literature, feminist literature, and people who simply enjoy reading interesting American fiction.
            One of the strongest themes addressed by Morrison in Sula is problems within the black community. The town of Medallion, Ohio, is a mostly white city that forced the blacks into the hills on the outskirts of the city. Furthermore, whites limit the employment opportunities for blacks by only hiring them in servile positions with low wages, which forces many of the men to find work outside of the town. When a government project initiated in 1927 to build a tunnel only hires whites and white immigrants, blacks are again excluded from access to social mobility. Only in 1965, when Nel, the best friend of Sula looks back on the history of the town, can she say that some progress occurs on race. However, by 1965, most of the blacks have left the hills and rich whites have taken over, building new homes and planning a golf course, which would erase the history of the black community that existed in the city. Thus, gentrification is one of the large themes of the novel. As Nel reflects back, she says:

The black people, for all their new look, seemed awfully anxious to get to the valley, or leave town, and abandon the hills to whoever was interested. It was sad, because the Bottom had been a real place. These young ones talking about the community, but they left the hills to the poor, the old, the stubborn—and the rich white folks (Morrison 166).

Though Nel criticizes the well-to-do blacks for leaving the Bottom in the 1940s and 1950s for the “white” valley and city proper, many poor blacks were left in the valley. Now, in the 1960s, rich whites are moving in and establishing a suburb in what once was a black community. Unfortunately, Nel does look back at the black community’s past with nostalgic eyes. But there was a real sense of community in the previous decades because the black church, Greater Saint Mathew’s, and the fact that every family knew each other in the area fostered a sense of community. Parents and children interacted with other families, and despite the problems of poverty, racism, and sexism, the black community was united for the most part.

            Morrison highlights the huge flaws within the black community as well. Nel’s mother, Helene, a New Orleans-raised Creole of color, is disappointed with her daughter’s flat, Negroid nose she inherited from her father. Helene also looks down on many of the darker-skinned inhabitants of Medallion, despite being a part of the community. She joins the most conservative Protestant church and initially disapproves of her daughter’s decision to befriend Sula because of her perceived lower-class origins. So problems of color prejudice are still entrenched within the community, alongside patriarchy and morally questionable approach to the mentally ill. Sula, her mother Hannah, and her grandmother, Eva, represent a feminist family tree within the male-dominated city. Eva, the matriarch, raises her children alone, but remains independent of male control or domination. She deliberately loses a leg to receive insurance money, but purchases a large home and rents out rooms for her income. Her daughter, Hannah, loses her husband to death, and becomes a nymphomaniac. Hannah, however, only sleeps with men on her terms and uses them for sexual pleasure. Indeed, she hates it when her lovers fall asleep in the house because she only wants them for sexual gratification, not for any relationship that would ultimately require them “owning” or controlling her body. Sula, the product of these two women, carries on their tradition of rejecting expected social conventions for women: marriage, children, and loss of independence the aforementioned entail. Sula, because of her elusiveness and indifference to established habits of behavior, becomes a pariah after returning to Medallion from going to college and seeing large cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Like her mother, she sleeps with men only for her own pleasure and on her own terms, and even assumes the top position while in the act of coitus as a symbol of her own autonomous sexual power. The patriarchal black community in which she lives eventually vilifies her, and attributes her lack or regard for social conventions to evil. Her community’s refusal to accept independent women who do not live solely for the purpose of marriage and procreation illustrate how exclusively male-dominated her own ethnic group and American society overall is. Her best friend, Nel, actually reproaches Sula for “acting like a man.” According to Nel, who marries and eventually raises her children alone, Sula cannot act like a man because she is a woman and colored, meaning she must choose work and domestic life (142). Thus, even the black women of the community have internalized the oppressive racism and sexism and limit their options in life, which is why Sula becomes a hated but tolerated member of the community.

            Paradoxically, the black community accepts social outcasts and the mentally ill more than the white society. Sula, though accused of being evil, remains a tolerated presence in the city, along with Shadrack, the insane drunkard and WWI veteran who establishes the National Suicide Day. Tar Baby, a white alcoholic is also tolerated in the community, and jokingly referred to as Tar Baby by Eva. These social outcasts, mentally ill, and the “evil” Sula are allowed to stay in the black neighborhood whereas white mobs and individuals would have forced them out. Sula is seen as a test for moral character of the community: she is a challenge to the established order that must be overcome and triumphed over instead of murdered or forced out of town (118). However, the fact that the community is unable to overcome its patriarchal organization of power becomes a setback. The popular adoption of the bourgeois values represented by Helene Wright deters social change, thereby reinforcing female poverty and oppression. Surprisingly, black folks do show up for the funeral service of Sula, and sing gospel songs for her despite their previous hatred for her.  

            Furthermore, Morrison’s use of magical realism is a welcome literary technique that is highly reminiscent of her future works. Hannah’s dream of being enveloped in a red dress predicts her death by fire, and the Dewey boys who never age also demonstrate this. Another example of magical realism is the plague of robins that takeover the town after Sula returns from abroad. These obviously unrealistic portrayals of reality indicate the falsehood of binary thinking in human life. Life cannot be summarized as solely two oppositional approaches, truth and falsehood, but the nuances of life must be recognized as part of the real world. The power of surreal or “magical” events like the never-aging Dewey boys, essentially adopted by Eva and merged into one due to her inability to tell them apart, become indistinguishable by everyone else in society. Thus, society itself draws on these nuances of reality that may not exist in the real world, but become reality as social constructs. Moreover, the use of magic realism is not surprising in African-American literature due to the singular experience of black American life. Our own experiences are “magical” in themselves for the ludicrousness of slavery and racial oppression as part of the human experience. It truly is quite unbelievable that slavery and racial oppression became entrenched in human society and dictated the course of human history since race itself is a social construct based on myth of “races” and subspecies. Of course one could also point to African-American oral traditions that speak of flying Africans and supernatural phenomena to escape slavery as well.

            Besides the use of magic realism, Morrison’s novel also questions the nature of mental illness and the Manichean world of good and evil. Shadrack, the insane alcoholic, eventually grows tired of his solitude and makes a conscious decision to start a spontaneous parade in the city which grows into a march that destroys the tunnel being constructed without black labor. Shadrack, though unstable since returning from World War I, leads the angry crowd in the march against one of the symbols of their racial oppression, even though it does not end well. Thus, Shadrack fully understands the causes of their collective oppression, and seeks a solution. He also grows to reject the permanency of the world despite change, contradicting his message of “always” to the teenage Sula, who he believed feared change. For Shadrack and many of the black population, who had grown accustomed to his insane one-man marches on National Suicide Day, actually join him and struggle for real change by directing their anger at the white-controlled hegemonic system. Other presumably mentally ill characters, such as Tar Baby, the alcoholic white man living among the blacks who lives on drinks and music, also illustrate the nuances of mental illness. After causing a car accident on the white side of town, the white police arrest him and throw him in jail, using the fact that he lives in the hills as proof of his madness. Is a white man who willingly lives among Negroes naturally insane? Perhaps Tar Baby is the sanest of the whites in Medallion, Ohio.

            Sula is a run-to novel for any fan of Toni Morrison. Her ultimate message in the novel, self-love and assertion of one’s identity despite social constraints, is personified in the titular character. As Sula herself realizes in the novel, no lover could ever be the version of herself she sought to reach out to and touch with an ungloved hand (121). Her life of self-fulfilled goals and interests, regardless of societal expectations of women and blacks, is a message to women (and others) around the world to love thy self. Once women, such as Sula, love themselves, they no longer need to accept the role of mothers, wives, and domestics imposed on them by society, but can contemplate a life in which their legacy is not the children they produce, but their own existence. Morrison also provides a scathing critique of American society and Black America in particular, focusing on the shortcomings of the widespread adoption of certain patriarchal bourgeois values that prevent human understanding and unity.