{"id":1621,"date":"2023-10-10T12:10:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T11:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/?p=1621"},"modified":"2023-10-10T13:29:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T12:29:43","slug":"the-humour-of-rage-vengeance-in-beattys-the-sellout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/2023\/10\/10\/the-humour-of-rage-vengeance-in-beattys-the-sellout\/","title":{"rendered":"The Humour of Rage & Vengeance in Beatty’s ‘The Sellout’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Laoise McWilliams <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
(Paul Beatty the first US author to win Man Booker Prize \u2013 Sourced The Straits Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

                                   \u2018Who am I? And how can I be that person?\u2019<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These two questions form a central motif in Beatty\u2019s 2015 The Sellout <\/em>sustaining an interrogation into identity throughout the novel. The narrator, Me or Bonbon, is introduced to the soothing nature of the questions by his father a psychologist sent to get a \u2018psychotic motherfucker to lower his gun.\u2019 His Father\u2019s voice had \u2018a way of relaxing the enraged and allowing them to confront their fears anxiety free.\u2019 Beatty similarly employs a soothing authoritative voice to delve into key issues facing Black Americans in a \u2018post-race\u2019 society through his use of humour. By embedding humour into the fabric of the novel Beatty offers a dynamic narrative reflective of multifaceted nature of humans and emphasising societies unwillingness to substantively address race issues. In the prologue of the novel Bonbon on trial in the Supreme court states:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Your honour, I plead human.\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His objection to the binary negotiations of guilt instantly shatters ideas of typical human nature. He is neither guilty nor innocent with the simplistic and honest style of language imbuing the scene with a theatricality and humour. Naughton argues that by pleading human Beatty questions \u2018the universalist ideal of an ordinary and irreducible humanity underlying and legitimising legal definitions of phrases like \u201chuman rights\u201d or \u201ccrimes against humanity\u201d.\u2019 What we mean by human and an overarching sense of identity is presented as futile and exclusionary as the terms do not reflect Bonbon\u2019s reality. Furthermore, the typical trappings of identity are stripped of Bonbon as he explains:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Like the entire town of Dickens, I was my father\u2019s child, a product of my environment and nothing more. Dickens was me. And I was my father. Problem is they both disappeared from my life, first my dad, and then my hometown, and suddenly I had no idea who I was, and no clue how to become myself.\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consumptive and encompassing language propels the notion that the grounding features of identity, place and family, are denied Bonbon and the population of Dickens. Markers of home and safety are usurped continually leaving the inhabitants in a state of identity crisis. Who they are is lost and progression doesn\u2019t exist within typical linguistic terms. Beatty has created a framework to allegorise the experience of Black people as \u2018notions of human identity itself as universal or unchanging may be recognised as a historical construct constituted by the exclusion, marginalisation and oppression of racial others.\u2019 (Bennet & Royle) If Black identity is not included in universal ideals Beatty is pinpointing the failure of language and the repercussions of a loss of identification and belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a response to being \u2018exiled to the netherworld of invisible L.A communities,\u2019 Bonbon draws a border around the town. Through his diagram on his \u2018empowerpoint\u2019 he writes binaries such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018WHITE AMERICA \/ DICKENS,\u2019 \u2018THE HOOD \/ NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES REFERRED TO AS THE HOOD \u2013 NOT THE HOOD,\u2019 and \u2018THE BEST OF TIMES \/ THE WORST OF TIMES.\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beatty is pinpointing the essential differences between the black community and the surrounding neighbourhood and deliberately portraying black life as a place in opposition to those around it tapping into stereotypes and tropes created by a white-centric narrative. However, he does so through humour and with a creative playful tactic. Beatty himself asserts that \u2018Humour is vengeance\u2019 to satirise or mock the harsh reality is presented as an affective form of rebellion. The essential humour does not distil the seriousness of the content as even Bonbon reflects \u2018I was more serious about this than I thought\u2019 and felt that the border invoked an \u2018implication of solidarity and community\u2019 even though \u2018it was just a line.\u2019 The border offers a space of control and importance, it invokes a sense of belonging which whilst humorous it re-establishes a sense of community. Similar to the relaxing tone Bonbon\u2019s father used to \u2018make the client feel important, to feel that he or she is in control of the healing process.\u2019 Bonbon\u2019s border is a psychological tool to help rebuild identity compounded by humour that exemplifies the rage and sense of loss experienced by Bonbon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the novel Bonbon reflect that \u2018Silence can be either protest or consent, but most of the time it\u2019s fear.\u2019 Whilst throughout the novel Bonbon focuses primarily on external markers of identity such as mottos, borders, and signage he distils fear through the use of humour. The novel concludes with Bonbon explaining:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019ve whispered \u2018Racism\u2019 in a post-racial world.<\/em>\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in doing so ironically \u2018managed to racially discriminate against every race in the world all at the same time.\u2019 The act of whispering correlates with soothing, he exposes the fragility of societal structures and the ideological delicacy of America and the fault lines hindering identity and belonging. In doing so Beatty fulfils Frank Wilderson III\u2019s request for \u2018something that celebrates the absoluteness of rage\u2019 yet this rage is presented through calming terms and humour. Beatty reflects on the rage and loss by using his humour as a form of vengeance he writes \u2018if an increasingly pluralistic America ever decides to commission a new moto, I\u2019m open for business.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aaron Robertson, The Year Afropessimism Hit the Streets?:A Conversation at the Edge of the World, 27 August 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beatty, Paul. 2016. \u2018The Sellout.\u2019 (Germany: Oneworld Publications)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beatty, Paul. 2008. Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor. (United States, Bloomsbury Publishing)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bennet, Andrew & Royle, Nicholas. 2016. \u2018An Introduction To Literature, Criticism and Theory\u2019 (Oxon: Routledge<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gerald David Naughton. 2023 \u201c\u2018Pleading Human\u2019 in Paul Beatty\u2019s The Sellout<\/em>\u201d, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 64:3, 443-452, DOI: 10.1080\/00111619.2022.2047879<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laoise McWilliams                                    \u2018Who am I? And how can I be that person?\u2019 These two questions form a central motif in Beatty\u2019s 2015 The Sellout sustaining an interrogation into identity throughout the novel. The narrator, Me or Bonbon, is introduced to the soothing nature of the questions by his father a psychologist sent to get … Continue reading The Humour of Rage & Vengeance in Beatty’s ‘The Sellout’<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1444,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p58scM-q9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1621"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1626,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1621\/revisions\/1626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/americanists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}