Imposing Identities
During discussion in class today,
Mr. Mitchell asked the question, “What is Gunnar so mad about?” regarding Gunnar’s
drastic decision to (eventually) commit suicide by waiting for the atomic bomb
to hit Hillside. This question made me reflect on the book as a whole, and it
became clear that one of the biggest factors in Gunnar’s decision was the
mentally detrimental effects of white people imposing identities on him throughout
his whole life.
From the beginning of the novel,
Gunnar is framed as the “funny cool black guy”. Although he likes being this
person, it’s also an identity that the kids (at his primarily white high
school) gave him. In high school, Gunnar is framed as the basketball prodigy,
and in college, he’s idolized as a genius poet. Most of these identities seem
positive— and even things that other people strive for, which makes it
difficult to understand why it’s a problem. However, Gunnar seems to have a big
issue with it. He continuously fights back against these roles and tries to
gain control of his own identity. Some examples of this can be seen in the
scene of the basketball game where he simulates a minstrel show, calling out
the audience and judges at the poetry competition, and retorting back to the El
Campesino teacher that patronized him without even knowing who he was.
Throughout his whole life, other peoples’ perceptions of him have become his identity,
and this reality is a lot more suffocating than it may seem. For one, many
readers probably haven’t experienced this degree of a lack of control over their
own identity because Beatty creates an exaggerated (although with close connections
to reality) experience for Gunnar, since his novel as a whole is full of satire. Another factor that makes it difficult for
readers to see the issue is these identities seem positive and the problem as a
whole is hard to pinpoint. It’s difficult to clearly point out the racism in some
of these situations because it’s very inherent and masked.
Ultimately, these identities that
make people worship Gunnar actually make him feel worthless, because people only
see him as who they want him to be. He is reduced to a form of entertainment, like
a circus animal doing tricks to entertain the crowd. After understanding Gunnar’s
situation a bit better, his drastic decision is still a difficult pill to swallow,
but also more understandable.
I think it's really interesting how sometimes people's actions that they think are positive end up being pretty detrimental and offensive to someone, one of these actions obviously being pushing an identity upon someone. Especially in college, at his first class he ever attended, the reader already sees his classmates pushing this identity of a genius poet onto him which ends up in Gunnar never attending another class at BU again. I think a large part of it is people seeing him as a symbol or an idea rather than wanting to know him for who he is as a person. I like how you mention that other peoples' perceptions of him become his identity. I think this is totally true and pretty important in understanding Gunnar's thought process and why he acts like he does.
ReplyDeleteWhen he first learns about basketball, Gunnar is able to find some of his identity in playing the game. He seems to enjoy playing pickup games with Nick and his other friends, buying new shoes and getting a haircut. This made it sad to read about how his love and interest for basketball is crushed by the culture around basketball as he gets more recognition. While he hates how people label him and his identity, Gunnar manages to use it to his advantage, avoiding the media by realizing that no one would think to look for a star basketball player in the library.
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting analysis and I agree. Looking back on the novel, Gunnar always had his identity imposed on him. Slowly he begins to want more and more to break away from that. He has everything a person could want, but he is still not his own. In the end he decided that suicide is the only way to break away from that.
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