The ending of The White Boy Shuffle is really extreme. Even though I found out what was going to happen at the end in the prologue, the light hearted writing style almost made me forget that the book would end in such a negative way.
I honestly don't really like the ending of this book because it is so pessimistic. Gunnar said that he couldn’t make a difference, but I think that he would have had the capability to do so, and had already made a big difference already. By the end of the book, he was famous and had a huge amount of influence in the black community. He could have used that influence to make a change, even if it wasn't as big as he wanted it to be.
The ending is actually similar to other books we have read. For example, the narrator in Invisible Man ends the book having completely given up on and separated himself from society. Effectively, Gunnar is doing the same thing, just in a more extreme and public way. Gunnar says that he is committing suicide because he is “tired of thrashing around in the muck and not getting anywhere. (Beatty, 226)” The narrator in Invisible Man had a similar realization, and said:
Now I know men are different and that all life is divided and that only in division is there true health. Hence again I have stayed in my hole, because up above there’s an increasing passion to make men conform to a pattern. (Ellison, 576)
Perhaps the difference and the change that he wanted to make was accomplished through this movement of mass-suicide. By putting themselves out of the misery on Earth, is that not a sort of protest against their environments? I'm not trying to say that the ending is optimistic for a better life on Earth nor am I particularly fond of the ending myself, but I don't think we necessarily have to view suicide as giving up.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very interesting comparison between 2 books that we have read in class! It also shows the differences between the narrator and Gunnar, the narrator leaves himself an option to come back and re-enter society, while Gunnar decides to end it forever.
ReplyDeleteI agree that even knowing how this book would end from the prologue the end was still shocking. I think this shock mainly comes from how funny and light -- even in the face of terrible events-- this book is. With the Rodney Kind shooting we get some heavy typed of reactions but the main focus goes more to comedic aspects of the looting. The racism in this book is largely joked about and so to see this ending where things are that bad is really devastating.
ReplyDeleteThe narrator at the very end of the act of writing his "memoir" wonders aloud whether an invisible man might have a "socially responsible role to play," and he depicts himself as "coming out" after his time of seclusion. This casts Ellison's ending as much more hopeful and optimistic than Beatty's--especially in light of the narrator's comments about affirming the principles of equality on which the nation was founded, even if the reality fails to meet those ideals. Gunnar seems to see no possibility of American white people treating black people with basic decency, legal advances in civil rights notwithstanding.
ReplyDeleteThis difference is partly a reflection of the pre- and post-civil rights contexts for these two novels: we can see Ellison as on the cusp of the movement, and Beatty as a disillusioned product of it.
I agree with Anna. I think by viewing his suicide as an act of giving up and surrendering we've fallen victim to the "Western idea of suicide" as Gunner puts it. "Oh, they dysfunctional people couldn't adjust to our great system, so they killed themselves." I think from Gunner's perspective it wasn't surrender, but victory. "It is as Mishima once said: 'Sometimes hara-kiri makes you win.' I just want to win one time."
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