Reed’s Lampoons
As discussed in class, chapter 26 of Mumbo Jumbo has Reed go on a tangent of sorts, spending about a page discussing the objects on Abdul’s desk. While its inclusion in the story may seem random and not bearing any significance to the story, I found that it provides the reader with the tools to make a simple connection: while the white colonists are the subject of the African’s lampoons, the Wallflower Order, and really anyone of the white race in Mumbo Jumbo, act as Reed’s lampoons. This connection makes even more sense when you consider the book itself as a work of art, satirizing in the same manner as the Africans. In fact, Reed himself points out how the African race “had quite a sense of humor,” which was lacking in modern African-American works (Reed 96). It makes sense that Reed wants to use his book as a way to bring back the original African style of art, using irony and satire to make profound points, so he does so in Mumbo Jumbo by targeting the Wallflower Order, and to an extent the entire white race.
The objects on Abdul’s desk are said to have been taken to Europe by “the slavers, traders and sailors who had taken gunpowder and uniforms to Africa”. They depict the Europeans in a mocking way, having them act self assured with ridiculous hats, all while looking more like animals than humans. The joke completely flew over the heads of the Europeans, as they severely underestimated the Africans (97). This can all be seen with the Wallflower Order too, where they act as the modern-day equivalents of these Europeans. For example, when we are first introduced to the Wallflower Order’s headquarters, there is an emphasis on the presence of plastics (62). We also see them utilize technologies such as the television, which at that point hadn’t even been created yet (63). This shows how far humanity has progressed technologically, which in theory doesn’t sound too bad, though Reed uses this advancement to satirize the Wallflower Order. He describes how they (the Atonists) got “rid of their spirits 1000s of years ago,” and that the “flesh was next,” for plastic was to replace it all (62). This advanced technology is now thought less of as innovative and important and more so as repulsive and ridiculous, thanks to Reed’s interpretations. While I am failing to note the humor used to describe this all, it’s an important part of Reed’s portrayal of the technologies that we should keep in mind. In fact, the jokes he makes in this section are mostly about how ridiculous the situation of the Wallflower Order is, as they think they’re better than everyone else while in reality they’ve just fooled themselves to think that. This is almost identical to how the Africans portrayed the Europeans, which makes the two a nice parallel.
The satire continues with virtually all the white characters in the book. To name a few, we start with Hinkle Von Vampton, who is portrayed as looking like Death itself, with his pastime activities including discussing European history and eating bean pie (55). The name of Hubert “Safecracker” Gould is quite funny and brings into attention how ridiculous the character really is (72). Biff Musclewhite is called “the man who tamed the wilderness,” in what is quite a bold and silly title (107). Thor Wintergreen is tricked by Biff, which leads to the death of Berbalang, in a show of Thor’s “loyalty” (120). To some readers, this all may seem unwarranted and going beyond the point of being “just jokes.” But Reed’s motivation behind this all is much like the satire of the Africans: exaggerate the flaws of the subject to make the problems clear. The Africans who created the objects on Abdul’s desk were met with some of the most violent and flawed white people at the time, which allowed them to portray the white people in such a satirical manner. After all, they had a right to be angry at the white people, and so they used their art to criticize them. While I doubt Reed holds grievances against the entire white race (that would be absurd), much like the Africans, he is targeting those who portray the worst parts of the race, in an effort to bring awareness to issues that have historically been ignored. Both artists used satire to make clear issues that they believed were wrong, such as white monotheistic beliefs, white colonialism, and white technology, to name a few.
Nice job Mahdi! I agree with the connection you make between the objects on Abdul's desk and Reed's "overarching" satire about white people and the Wallflower Order. I like how you are able to connect the Africans' mockery of Europeans to Reed's exaggeration and irony. Your takes on Reed's portrayal of technology, race, and irony makes the blog really fun to read.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent explication of the lampoons passage, and I agree that it is maybe the most metafictional part of the already very metafictional book, in that Reed seems to be directly commenting on his own methods. As you note, he takes this dig at the social-realist tradition in African American fiction, suggesting that there's something off about a literary tradition that seems to depend on selling versions of Black suffering and oppression to popular audiences, even if the intent is to raise consciousness and awareness. And Reed's own book is squarely in the humorous/satirical camp, and you're right that there's some real "table turning" going on here: as we're all aware to some extent, there's a pretty ugly tradition in American literature (and European and British literature) of characters of African descent being depicted as ignorant clowns and buffoons, marginal figures designed to provide comic relief, and a whole range of racist stereotypes and tropes. It's hard to see Reed as not "daring" a white reader to take offense at a depiction like Biff Musclewhite or Thor Wintergreen--and the response would implicitly be, "Well, how do you like it? Do you see what we've been complaining about for decades?" I love the phrase "chalk face" in this passage, because it perfectly parallels the racist distortions of "blackface" by flipping the script--these one-dimensional, racially exaggerated depictions of white colonials could have been the standard in some parallel universe where there was a long tradition of "racist" depictions of whites by African American authors. Among other things, it defamiliarizes American literature and compels the reader to at least contemplate the significance of having precisely this kind of tradition in the depiction of Black characters for generations.
ReplyDeleteHey Mahdi! I really like how you highlighted the parallel between the Africans’ satire and Reed’s own use of humor in Mumbo Jumbo. I agree that the objects on Abdul’s desk aren’t just random, they mirror Reed’s larger critique of arrogance and hypocrisy in white colonial and Atonist culture.
ReplyDeleteYou could probably think of this page as a "user's manual" for this entire novel. I also really like how you pointed out the joke flying over the Europeans' heads, and you did a great job of pointing out how Reed's novel is some sort of corrective joke seeking to poke fun and also shift certain biased narratives. The Wallflower Order is literally the butt of the ancient African sense of humor LaBas ended up reviving.
ReplyDeleteHi Mahdi! I'm reminded of the scene where an Atonist base (KT headquarters??) was depicted as high-tech and filled with glass--it's funny how such a high-tech group of people are essentially fooled by an ancient book. Reed has little snippets of irony sprinkled throughout the book (of course, there are large chunks as well) that make the book interesting to read. Great work!
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