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New Book Argues Jay Gatsby Was
A Black Man
New York, NY-- Jay
Gatsby was a Black Man passing for White? This is what
Dr. Carlyle Van Thompson is proposing, in his new book,
The
Tragic Black Buck: Racial Masquerading in the American Literary
Imagination.
About F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, Dr.
Thompson writes, “Essentially, beyond its class and ethnic
stratifications, The Great Gatsby raises critical
questions about racial identity. Thus, my argument here is that,
although Jay Gatsby advances himself in terms of socioeconomic
subjectivity, he is more significantly characterized as a
dangerous ‘pale’ individual, culturally, socially, and
legally designated as black, who attempts to pass himself off as
a sophisticated and very wealthy white individual. Accordingly, in this inquiry, The Great
Gatsby represents a timeless narrative of racial passing."
The arguments raised in
The Tragic Black Buck turn American literary classics upside down and inside
out, highlighting nuances and exposing hidden meanings of black
individuals “passing” for white in literary contexts. Beyond
analyzing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby,
this book also examines Charles Waddell Chesnutt's The
House Behind the Cedars, William Faulkner's Light
in August, and James Weldon Johnson's The
Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man.
Through mounting evidence, Dr. Thompson
asserts that black individuals successfully assuming a white
identity represent a paradox, in that passing for white
exemplifies a challenge to the philosophy of biological white
supremacy, while denying blackness.
Racial passing is a phenomenon that continues
to evolve within our society. Questions about what constitutes
“blackness” and “whiteness” dominant pop culture while
movies like Nicole Kidman’s and Anthony Hopkins’, The Human
Stain, demonstrate America’s continued interest in the
historical roots of passing. In writing about this topic, Dr.
Thompson opens the door to new ways at looking at the confines
of race.
The Tragic Black Buck will spark
debate, challenge ideals, and change the way people read, all
the while fostering renewed interest in classic American
literature.
* * *
* *
Carlyle Van
Thompson’s study of black maleness as forms of mask and
masquerade is brilliantly driving and fresh in its exploration
of novels we thought we knew well. Boldest of all is Professor
Thompson’s discernment of the “black buck” standing behind
the flashy white exteriors of Jay Gatsby; but every chapter here
has its audacious new findings. The Tragic Black Buck will
change the way we read canonical American literature as well as
the current American scene, where masking and double-masking
seem to define so much in our national identities. This book is
a triumph.
--Robert G. O’Meally,
Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative
Literature, Columbia University
The Tragic Black Buck is a worthy successor to the sort of imaginative
literary reconstruction initiated in Toni Morrison’s
Playing
in the Dark. Professor Thompson shows us in lucid fashion
how white and black identities are never the sole possession of
black and white people. Blackness and whiteness are created out
of the complex and intricate interplay between cultural, racial,
and social forces that are larger than a fastidiously bi-polar
paradigm suggests.
--Michael Eric Dyson,
Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities and African-American
Studies, the University of Pennsylvania |
