Throughout The White Boy Shuffle, similarly to Invisible Man and Native Son, Gunnar does not have much (if any) control over any
aspect of his life. One hilarious line
that demonstrates this is when Psycho Loco is marrying him off and says, “You
don’t even have an alarm clock, so don’t give me no bullshit that I’ve altered
your destiny” (165). Gunnar does not even set an alarm in the
morning to fit to any “schedule”. All of
his talents are taken advantage of by society’s “entertainment” and forces him
through more plot turns out of his control.
The absurdity of the society his lives in creates this fluid plot completely
out of Gunnar’s power.
Several people
commented in class how frustrated they were that Gunnar would want to take his
life from this world when he “has so much going for him”. One might say, “Gunnar is ‘successful’ in
basically every aspect of his life (athlete, writer, husband, father) so why
does feel like he must kill himself??” I
believe this could be the “natural” reaction Beatty wants the reader to
initially question, but then Beatty wants us to actually think about how Gunnar killing himself is the ONLY option he
has. Just like many of the other “crazy” plot
twists, the insanity of how society treats him is what determines his suicide.
On the last few
pages of the novel, Gunnar directly address this when responding to Psycho
Loco: “I’m the horse pulling the stagecoach, the donkey in the levee who’s
stumbled in the mud and come up lame.
You may love me, but I’m tired of thrashing around in the muck and not
getting anywhere, so put a n----- out his misery.” We discussed this at length in class, but I
think this is critical in understanding how he feels he has no option to “fight”
or try to change society: he has done
everything he can, but still is thrashing in the mud of American racism that is
not going away anytime soon.
This is really interesting. I think that having Gunnar end up suicidal is an choice that sort of makes sense in the context of the rest of the book. Gunnar has been kind of cynical for the entire novel and he seems preoccupied with death because many of his poems are about death. I feel like the quote that you have of Gunnar speaking to Psycho Loco is almost directly talking to the readers who don't want him to kill himself, saying that he gets that we like him but we need to put him out of his misery.
ReplyDeleteIt's important to note that at the end of the novel Gunnar is primarily experiencing a feeling of futility. If we look closely at the novel, we can see that there have been small clues of this all along. Gunnar never really expressed any emotion towards his basketball play, despite his amazing talent and immense success. He is indifferent not only to basketball but also to the suicides of both Dexter Waverly and his best friend Scoby. It is especially telling with Scoby, as even thought Gunnar is sad after his death, he never actually does anything to talk him out of it, and accepts Scoby's suicide as his own decision. This is why we find it so surprising, as it seems that our funny narrator has no reason to kill himself. In reality, Gunnar has been experiencing this futility in his life all along, from the Rodney King trial to basketball even to the death of some of his close friends, and this is what causes him to make his decision at the end of the novel when all of these feelings finally come to the surface.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but wonder whether the quote about the alarm clock is a reference to _Native Son._ Because it would make some sense if it were, if Beatty were pointing out that this this novel is very different from the protest novel that NS is, and the character of Gunnar is very different from Bigger. Gunnar is in control of his own destiny throughout the novel and that's especially obvious in the movement of mass-suicide whereas Bigger was just a product of his environment on a time schedule. Then again, maybe it's just an alarm clock.
ReplyDeleteWow, yah that is an interesting thought. I definitely wasn't thinking about it in relation to Native Son but that comparison really works.
DeleteI really liked how you brought up the quote where Gunnar says he is like a donkey. It is one of the culminating scenes and it ties together much of Gunnar's character. He has all of these talents, but feels like no matter what he will always slip in the mud. Even if we the reader want him to continue, from his perspective it is futile.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was really interesting that Beatty describes the inescapable pit that Gunnar is suffering in as the muck, because it contrasts so much with the positive descriptions we see of the muck in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie willingly comes to the muck, where she was happy working and being a slave, because she has found love with Tea Cake. Gunnar is loved, but it doesn't stop him from feeling the futility of living.
ReplyDeleteThis is something I brought up in class as well. Gunnar seems to have a pretty good life at the end of this book but he seems kind of disconnected from his life. At the same time I think the racism is this book was downplayed in a lot of ways. Although we see reactions to the Rodney Kind shooting lots of the the racism is mostly just brought up as the butt of a joke. I also agree that there's a lot of aspects of Gunnar's life that seem out of his control. He's amazingly good at basketball, his poetry spreads super fast, and he falls in love with his mail order bride.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to what you say in this post, I think Gunnar's perceived "lack of control" over his life is not due to any laziness, but rather due to the fact that he is unhappy with his life and the world (or system) he lives in. People have big expectations for him that aren't always what he wants, and he combats this in several ways, from throwing a game of basketball, to not owning an alarm clock.
ReplyDelete