Author: Isaac Schiller

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Beyond the Bedford

Near the midpoint of Percival Everett Intertextuality, I was arguing with my classmates. Rather than arguing to learn more about our differing perspectives, I argued to win. I felt as if I were trapped in high school, when learning was a competition, and only one right answer, in one right format, could be accepted. It is during such times that I feel as if I “stand like a specimen before these strangely unstrange faces,” feeling both that I am betraying myself for the ideals of others, and that I have become trapped in myself, causing my classmates to hit a brick wall when attempting to build with me.

In the process of attempting to reduce my ego, I became more capable of appreciating diverse opinions. In Frenzy, the characters similarly have a variety of motivations, goals, and opinions. However, they are connected through the style of their thought processes. While Semele, Pentheus, and Agave seek limitless love, meaning, and escape from society respectively, they are bound by a desire to be more than what they are. Semele chooses to see Zeus’ true form even though she knows she cannot process it, because “the limits of [her] morality are excruciating, [her] wanting to give and give, and [her] power being finite” (Everett 14). Similarly, Pentheus seeks meaning, “in this dimension and in some others as well,” seeking a release from the confines of his mind (Everett 27). Agave wants Dionysos to “turn her free into the infinite dance of [his] spirit,” providing her a reprieve from her roles as “the mother of that king, the daughter of that king,” limits placed upon her due to her gender (Everett 44). All three of them want to reach beyond themselves and their roles. However, they each ignore the motivations of others, causing their fates. Their blind, individualistic determination causes each of them to suffer. For example, Agave ignores the fact that Dionysos will not protect her, and her belief that she and the Bacchants “are all free, and…are powerful” proves ironic when she is uninfluenced by Dionysos, but toppled by Kadmos (Everett 160). Agave would have more freedom if she were able to recognize Kadmos’ motivation to blame her for Pentheus’ death, and Dionysos’ lack of motivation to serve her needs. In the same way, I have been determined to succeed without considering my classmates’ similar motivations. We understood that we all wanted to gain knowledge, but I did not make enough room for their differing methods of achieving the goal of wanting to leave the class as more than what they had when they came in. If I had paid more attention to my classmates, I could have used more of our discussions as springboards for deeper analyses. 

I, like Pentheus, am sometimes trapped between ruminating about my life (or more specifically, my flaws), and believing that I alone can complete my goals. As Pentheus wishes to express to Kadmos, “be warned that finally you will die because I live and not in spite of it,” my confidence in my ability to succeed on my own merits often borders on hubris (Everett 27). In a sense, these feelings are accurate. I am flawed, and so is my work, but I am the only person who will ever complete my own goals. In order to succeed, I have to value my contributions. It is therefore difficult to work with others on the same piece, because we each have our defining goals and flaws that belong to us alone, even if we might be experiencing somewhat universal emotions. These flaws, strengths, and motivators define our work, so it is difficult for me to hand over something that has my stamp on it for someone else to flesh out. 

The consequence of my protectiveness over my work is that I ignore that writing is inherently an act of cooperation. It is impossible for a text to exist independently, as “its language inevitably contains common points of reference with other texts (Murfin and Ray 215). Novels such as I Am Not Sidney Poitier are in constant dialogue with other texts. Everett constantly alludes to movies in which Sidney Poitier has acted, such as The Defiant Ones (46), Lilies of the Field (Everett 170), and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Everett 153). The titular character, Not Sidney, is impossible to separate from the non-fictional Sidney Poitier, as he is constantly defined by the society within the novel by this connection (Everett 102). Eventually, he begins to view himself through the lens of society, calling himself “Sidney” (Everett 185). Although “[a] politically and aesthetically avant-garde cinema is now possible…, it can still only exist as a counterpoint,” and recognizing the ways in which I Am Not Sidney Poitier is a counterpoint to Sidney Poitier’s works is vital to understanding the themes of race and self present in the novel (Mulvey 59). To read I Am Not Sidney Poitier from a New Critical perspective and ignore the ways in which Not Sidney is Sidney Poitier’s Eidolon would be to lose the novel’s multi-faceted narrative. In order to write about I Am Not Sidney Poitier appropriately, it is necessary to view the act of creating as an act of borrowing materials to build something else. There is no work that stands alone; although many do not borrow ideas from other texts as blatantly as Percival Everett does, everything that is written is connected to culture outside the text. It would be plagiarism to claim that my works are the uninfluenced exception to this rule. I could not work on this essay alone; not only am I responding to the dialogue between me and my classmates, but I am also taking components of Percival Everett’s work and using them as tools for reflection.

I therefore want to not be myself while also genuinely expressing my views. In being “NOT MYSELF,” I allow myself to be in dialogue with different works, opinions, and time periods. However, I do not have to lose my own perspective in order to allow different factors to refine it. Through accepting that I can build off of others, I am able to create flexible paradigms that help me to better comprehend the breadth of the human experience.

It would be appropriate for me to slow down while discussing with others. I have a responsibility to take the time I need to fully form my ideas and understand what has influenced them. If I “unpack,” which is to explain one’s thought process and connect the points that it is comprised of for the sake of an audience, I will be able to shape evidence into a cohesive argument. Being patient with my writing process helps my peers to understand my perspective, so that we will be able to discuss our interpretations transparently. Transparency is vital to productive group conversations. Expressing one’s argument in a way that does not outline how one came to a conclusion often leads to group members to argue over similar interpretations in different packages. When I recognize what I am trying to convey and am clear about my thought process, my group has more opportunity to constructively respond to me. By unpacking, I will be better able to acknowledge my classmates’ substantially different perspectives and how their interpretations might open new avenues of understanding both a text and the world.

I hope to invert the way in which I am “NOT MYSELF TODAY.” Instead of feeling trapped by the varying opinions and standards of my peers and retreating into myself for answers, I will work toward cooperating with others and incorporating an accountability for my limited knowledge into my practice. While my peers cannot achieve my goal of insightfully dealing with literature for me, an awareness of outside perspectives helps me deal with the challenge. As displayed in Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (Williams, Woolliams, and Spiro 91), the process of reflecting is that of being able to describe a concept before attempting to analyze and apply it. Instead of seeking individuality by means of focusing on my own perspective, I recognize that I am my viewpoints are not autochthonous, and that they have been created through my interactions with society. Instead of immediately rejecting perspectives that oppose the paradigm I have unconsciously developed, I will reflect on my others’ interpretations and analyze them, leaving myself the possibility of incorporating these interpretations as bases for further analysis. In doing so, I can deepen my comprehension of texts by accepting perspectives I would not have considered on my own into my works. I will reach beyond myself and make interpretations that are more than the sum of their parts.

Posted on by Isaac Schiller - No Comments on A̖̘͕̳̻ͨͦ͛͑̎ ͑ͅis̘̬̼͍̻̠̓ͨ̋ͭ̈ͪ ̦ͮf̦̑o̽̒r̻̱͊̓͡ ̛ͫa̟̮̖̥̪̿ͤ̃͑̚͠p̹̙̞̫͇ͅp̻͉̠̠͓͇̯̑̍͆̆̈́̇̓l̙͉͇̽̐̚ḙ̭ͤ̉,̔́ ̊͌̒ͣͦͯͨB̗̰ͤͮ́ͅ ͕͛i̷͚͇̓̅s̪̘̰̈͗̒ ̜̟̰̗̱̮̣f͉̳͈̮͍ͅo̫̪r̠̻̩̯̪̳͖̈ͩ̌ͣ͗̈̚ ͗̀̇͋ͭḅ̩̬̱̐̏̏̏ę̘̖̩̪̗̅̈͋͋̚e̹̫̹͈͚̱͈̾ͬ͂̂̌͗ͣ͢,͑ͮ́̓ͦͤ̈́҉ ̸͖̖̩̬̟̫̅ͦ͂ͤͥͬC̟̹ͅ ̴i̡͉͖̲͚̯ͨͥ̋ͭ̏s̅ͦ ̪̭͇͚̲͜f̲͚͛̀̓ͅor̜̳̼ͦ͐ͭ̕ P͈̺̺ͨ̍̌h́͒̾ͦ̓ͯ͘’ͮ̅ͦ́n̂́͠g̜͊ļ̪͒u̫̜͓̠ͩͧ̆̏i̳̳͔̟ͤͪ̈̓ ̯̻͚̥̻̝̀m̿̑̓̄̋͏̻̱͓͙͈g̣͈̳͙̼͉l͏̹̱̜̣̺̰w͖ͬ’̺͎̰͎ͨ̌́ͣn̳͍̖̮ͨ̌͛̄a̩̝̻̺̺ͅf̖̅h̔́̾ ̦͍̦̲̖̻ͭͬ̂̈̃͌C͘t̛hͪͮ͆̃u̙̠̭̥̲̾̈̓͑̾lͬh͕͞u̵̟ ̿R’l̪̙͖̩̫̯̍̈ͮͥ̽ͭ͢y̼̣̲ͥ͑ͭe͔ͬh ͯͩ͆̐͛w͚̻̣ͬͨ̂g͑ͫ̉̋ͣ̈ͯă̈h͇̜̦̦̩͈̐̎̾͐̓̚’n̂͐͗̅ͩ̓ͭag͕̠̟̙͓ͪͬ̂ͨ̾l fh̹̮̥̺͉tͯ͐̐ͥͬ̚a̙̺͖̥͔̩͆̄ͥ͌̿ͦ͑ͅg͓͕n̛͎̣͙̥ͫ̍̎ͮ…̶

A̖̘͕̳̻ͨͦ͛͑̎ ͑ͅis̘̬̼͍̻̠̓ͨ̋ͭ̈ͪ ̦ͮf̦̑o̽̒r̻̱͊̓͡ ̛ͫa̟̮̖̥̪̿ͤ̃͑̚͠p̹̙̞̫͇ͅp̻͉̠̠͓͇̯̑̍͆̆̈́̇̓l̙͉͇̽̐̚ḙ̭ͤ̉,̔́ ̊͌̒ͣͦͯͨB̗̰ͤͮ́ͅ ͕͛i̷͚͇̓̅s̪̘̰̈͗̒ ̜̟̰̗̱̮̣f͉̳͈̮͍ͅo̫̪r̠̻̩̯̪̳͖̈ͩ̌ͣ͗̈̚ ͗̀̇͋ͭḅ̩̬̱̐̏̏̏ę̘̖̩̪̗̅̈͋͋̚e̹̫̹͈͚̱͈̾ͬ͂̂̌͗ͣ͢,͑ͮ́̓ͦͤ̈́҉ ̸͖̖̩̬̟̫̅ͦ͂ͤͥͬC̟̹ͅ ̴i̡͉͖̲͚̯ͨͥ̋ͭ̏s̅ͦ ̪̭͇͚̲͜f̲͚͛̀̓ͅor̜̳̼ͦ͐ͭ̕ P͈̺̺ͨ̍̌h́͒̾ͦ̓ͯ͘’ͮ̅ͦ́n̂́͠g̜͊ļ̪͒u̫̜͓̠ͩͧ̆̏i̳̳͔̟ͤͪ̈̓ ̯̻͚̥̻̝̀m̿̑̓̄̋͏̻̱͓͙͈g̣͈̳͙̼͉l͏̹̱̜̣̺̰w͖ͬ’̺͎̰͎ͨ̌́ͣn̳͍̖̮ͨ̌͛̄a̩̝̻̺̺ͅf̖̅h̔́̾ ̦͍̦̲̖̻ͭͬ̂̈̃͌C͘t̛hͪͮ͆̃u̙̠̭̥̲̾̈̓͑̾lͬh͕͞u̵̟ ̿R’l̪̙͖̩̫̯̍̈ͮͥ̽ͭ͢y̼̣̲ͥ͑ͭe͔ͬh ͯͩ͆̐͛w͚̻̣ͬͨ̂g͑ͫ̉̋ͣ̈ͯă̈h͇̜̦̦̩͈̐̎̾͐̓̚’n̂͐͗̅ͩ̓ͭag͕̠̟̙͓ͪͬ̂ͨ̾l fh̹̮̥̺͉tͯ͐̐ͥͬ̚a̙̺͖̥͔̩͆̄ͥ͌̿ͦ͑ͅg͓͕n̛͎̣͙̥ͫ̍̎ͮ…̶

In recent discussions of structure, a controversy has been whether structure is an appropriate tool to measure how much knowledge is disseminated. On one hand, Shelagh Neely argues that “Structure reminds me of a foundation. A foundation that you start off with and work your way up the ladder of writing a paper, a poem, a book, or even a blog post.” From this perspective, set forms, such as the abecedarian, are solid foundations which allow for knowledge to be transmitted clearly. On the other hand, however, others argue that it is impossible for knowledge to be organized in a manner that expresses information coherently. In the words of H. P. Lovecraft, one of this view’s main proponents, “[t]he most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents” (1). According to this view, structure is inadequate because humans are fallible, and cannot connect information enough to discover Truth. In sum, then, the issue is whether we can trust that creative and informational works are created upon a trustworthy foundation, or if the limits of human knowledge are the true “walls” (Neely) that subjectively define our truths. Continue reading “A̖̘͕̳̻ͨͦ͛͑̎ ͑ͅis̘̬̼͍̻̠̓ͨ̋ͭ̈ͪ ̦ͮf̦̑o̽̒r̻̱͊̓͡ ̛ͫa̟̮̖̥̪̿ͤ̃͑̚͠p̹̙̞̫͇ͅp̻͉̠̠͓͇̯̑̍͆̆̈́̇̓l̙͉͇̽̐̚ḙ̭ͤ̉,̔́ ̊͌̒ͣͦͯͨB̗̰ͤͮ́ͅ ͕͛i̷͚͇̓̅s̪̘̰̈͗̒ ̜̟̰̗̱̮̣f͉̳͈̮͍ͅo̫̪r̠̻̩̯̪̳͖̈ͩ̌ͣ͗̈̚ ͗̀̇͋ͭḅ̩̬̱̐̏̏̏ę̘̖̩̪̗̅̈͋͋̚e̹̫̹͈͚̱͈̾ͬ͂̂̌͗ͣ͢,͑ͮ́̓ͦͤ̈́҉ ̸͖̖̩̬̟̫̅ͦ͂ͤͥͬC̟̹ͅ ̴i̡͉͖̲͚̯ͨͥ̋ͭ̏s̅ͦ ̪̭͇͚̲͜f̲͚͛̀̓ͅor̜̳̼ͦ͐ͭ̕ P͈̺̺ͨ̍̌h́͒̾ͦ̓ͯ͘’ͮ̅ͦ́n̂́͠g̜͊ļ̪͒u̫̜͓̠ͩͧ̆̏i̳̳͔̟ͤͪ̈̓ ̯̻͚̥̻̝̀m̿̑̓̄̋͏̻̱͓͙͈g̣͈̳͙̼͉l͏̹̱̜̣̺̰w͖ͬ’̺͎̰͎ͨ̌́ͣn̳͍̖̮ͨ̌͛̄a̩̝̻̺̺ͅf̖̅h̔́̾ ̦͍̦̲̖̻ͭͬ̂̈̃͌C͘t̛hͪͮ͆̃u̙̠̭̥̲̾̈̓͑̾lͬh͕͞u̵̟ ̿R’l̪̙͖̩̫̯̍̈ͮͥ̽ͭ͢y̼̣̲ͥ͑ͭe͔ͬh ͯͩ͆̐͛w͚̻̣ͬͨ̂g͑ͫ̉̋ͣ̈ͯă̈h͇̜̦̦̩͈̐̎̾͐̓̚’n̂͐͗̅ͩ̓ͭag͕̠̟̙͓ͪͬ̂ͨ̾l fh̹̮̥̺͉tͯ͐̐ͥͬ̚a̙̺͖̥͔̩͆̄ͥ͌̿ͦ͑ͅg͓͕n̛͎̣͙̥ͫ̍̎ͮ…̶”

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Ya Like Jazz?

Percival Everett’s Zulus intervenes in the kind of social tensions that Jerry Seinfeld outlines in Bee Movie. More specifically, the poems exists in conversation with Bee Movie, suggesting the impossibility of liberty from our external realms.

In the world of Bee Movie (2007), bees receive their jobs as soon as they graduate from college. They are assigned niche roles in the honey-making factory, “Honex: A Division of Honesco:  A Part of the Hexagon Group” (Seinfeld 8). According to Trudy, who guides Barry and his friend, Adam, around the factory, “Most bee jobs are small ones. But bees know that every small job, if it’s done well, means a lot. There are over 3000 different bee occupations. But choose carefully, because you’ll stay in the job that you pick for the rest of your life” (Seinfeld 10). Barry panics when he realizes that he will be in the same job forever, questioning whether the Honex will “just work us to death,” to which Trudy cheerfully replies, “we’ll sure try” (Seinfeld 10). Continue reading “Ya Like Jazz?”

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Gatsbarriers

In the novel The Great Gatsby, the titular character, Jay Gatsby, is obsessed with earning the affections of a wealthy woman, Daisy Buchanan, he had met five years before the beginning of the novel. He therefore adopted a luxurious lifestyle after having met and become infatuated with Daisy. Gatsby’s futile quest to be romantically involved with Daisy is also a quest to legitimize his wealth. Conversely, Not Sidney Poitier chooses to be romantically involved with Maggie Larkin without telling her that he is wealthy; however, she uses him to distance herself from her family because he does not appear wealthy and well-connected to her due to his skin color and lack of relations.

Jay Gatsby’s desire for Daisy, a wealthy woman he had met five years before the beginning of the novel, is based on her status. She grew up in money and privilege, and experienced what she refers to as her “beautiful white” girlhood (Fitzgerald 22). Daisy is therefore the perfect example of a woman from a family with  “old money.” Members of families with “old money” tend to marry one another in order to consolidate their wealth and power. Tom and Daisy Buchanan “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (Fitzgerald 191). Gatsby is white, so he is capable of dealing with bootleggers and gamblers in order to become a relatively renowned member of the Nouveau Riche. However, wealth and racial privilege are not satisfactory. He wants to become a full member of the Vieux Riche (Old Money), the people with the greatest social and political capital. However, “Old Money” must be passed through generations, and “his parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” (Fitzgerald 105). Hence, he throws elaborate parties for Daisy, a symbol of money that he believes will attract her. However, it becomes clear that Gatsby’s infatuation is one-sided. Gatsby watches the light at the end of Daisy’s dock each night (Fitzgerald 99). Daisy, however, does not even attend one of Gatsby’s parties. She only meets with Gatsby when Nick, a well-established member of her well-established family, invites her to tea at his home without mentioning Gatsby’s presence (Fitzgerald 86). Jay Gatsby is ultimately drawn in by the prospect of being a part, even an elicit part, of a family that would provide him with the status he so craved. He is rejected for the same reason that he is attracted to this dream, because he can’t feign his own status in the face of Tom Buchanan, who values antiquated ideas of “purity” that help him to maintain his “elite” status that cannot be worked into. He publicly lashes out against Gatsby, claiming that “nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white” (Fitzgerald 138-139). While Gatsby might be able to feign a position as a member of the Vieux Riche, his race and lack of established family members make his dream an impossibility.

Contrastingly, Maggie’s parents assume that he is not good enough for their daughter upon first being introduced to Not Sidney. Maggie uses the notion that Not Sidney is of improper social status in order to push herself away from her wealthy, well established family. However, Not Sidney is actually more established than Maggie is, as he possesses a large portion of his wealthy and well-known connection, Ted Turner’s fortune. Not Sidney is wealthy: wealthy enough for Maggie’s parents to want her to be with him once they find out about his wealth (Everett 145). While they had made racially charged comments about Not Sidney, calling his name “ghetto nonsense” (Everett 131), and had made passive aggressive comments toward Not Sidney about his race. In order to establish dominance over Not Sidney, Ward responds to Not Sidney’s comment that “[he] thinks hunting is stupid” with “hunting is a demonstration of man’s primacy in the order of nature” (Everett 132). In spite of not having the hunting experience he would need to claim this “primacy” for himself, Ward manages to posit the fact that he has never hunted as proof of his racial supremacy, slyly mentioning that “[he has] no desire to visit Africa,” and then asking if Not Sidney does (Everett 133). However, when Ward and Ruby find out that Not Sidney is rich, they decide to appeal to him so that he will continue to date Maggie. Ward tells Agnes that he “wants [her] to be nice to that boy upstairs” (Everett 145). Although Ward wishes to reap the benefits of Not Sidney’s wealth and social connections, his use of the demeaning and racially charged term “boy” in reference to Not Sidney indicates that he still views Not Sidney as an inferior. Although Not Sidney is wealthy and has valuable social connections, his skin color is still a societal barrier, especially when he interacts with those who don’t know of his financial status.

Jay Gatsby is rejected from the Vieux Riche once it is revealed that he does not have valuable social connections attached to his wealth, while Not Sidney is assumed to be low on the socio-economic ladder until it is proven otherwise. Both characters will never be fully accepted due to the narrow definition of “elite” used to keep very specific members of society in this “elite” role. However, Not Sidney’s race is more visible than Jay Gatsby’s lack of established family. While Gatsby can throw parties when various members of the Nouveau and Vieux Riche, Not Sidney’s race put him in increased danger of assault and discrimination outside his niche social circle.

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It’s Tragedian, Not Tragedi-Can

Both Frenzy and I Am Not Sidney Poitier contain elements of Aristotelian tragedy. However, Percival Everett subverts the fated tragic endings for both Dionysos and Not Sidney, as neither of their destinies are suitable consequences for their actions. While Dionysos, a god, is able to escape his τύχη, or the set course of one’s life that is determined by the gods, he does not fully carry the weight of his actions. Not Sidney, on the other hand, only feigns hubris, yet is punished in a way that is a burden to the audience rather than being a catharsis.

    Elizabeth Roos makes the claim that Dionysos is a tragic hero because “what they had been dreading for the protagonist finally occurred,” making “Frenzy’s conclusion…arguably more satisfying than I Am Not Sidney Poitier’s” (Roos). Roo posits that because the reader understands that Dionysos would, unlike the other gods, die, Dionysos’ death is an example of Chekhov’s Gun, “satisf[ying] an expectation that has been developed, hopefully creating catharsis in the reader” (Roos). 

          The reader is aware that Dionysos, unlike other gods, will die (Everett 9), so his death could be seen as a foreshadowed culmination of the chaos he causes. However, his fate as a god is to suffer with his godly actions, and eventually die before being placed back in his body. Dionysos lives his entire life at once, and it is a life of humans experiencing cruel fates due to their passions and his influence. He understands portions of his life through Vlepo, who functions as not only his eyes, but “his mortal bookmark” (Everett 3). Vlepo is forced to process events such as the death of Dionysos’ mother (Everett 16). Vlepo, rather than Dionysos, experiences the brunt of the pain associated with Dionysos, being subjected to the emotional consequences of the god’s involvement in people’s lives (Everett 17). On the contrary, Dionysos is curious about the impact he has, but throughout the novel, he allows Vlepo to experience the frenzy of humanity for him. He consistently avoids responsibility: even when “the notion of violence seemed new and unexpected to him” (Everett 135) he has already committed murder and claims to have been purified by Mother Rhea (Everett 134).

Dionysos sleeps so that he may be closer to his Bacchae, and he temporarily achieves this goal (Everett 83). As he learns how to sleep as a human would, he begins to understand the passions that he has created in humans. This shift from curiosity to a human degree of caring culminates in Dionysos when he rescues his mother from the underworld, a journey paralleling that of Orpheus and Eurydice. He decides that “after [he]…achieve[s] sleep, real sleep, [he wants Vlepo] to cut out [his] heart…and leave it unceremoniously on the ground” (Everett 154). His death is not tragic, but is instead a reprieve from his life. In doing so, Vlepo causes his life to end in a human way, but it ends instead of being placed into a new body.

Dionysos differentiates between letting someone die and killing them (Everett 130), which absolves him of responsibility and indicates that while he allowed himself to die, Vlepo was the one who killed him. Dionysos’ death ends the traumatizing experience of being human, which he now accepts as a human experience.  Although this decision ends the chaos, Dionysos does not kill himself. Instead, he lets Vlepo kill him, giving Vlepo the agency and responsibility to end the chaos. Vlepo takes responsibility for Dionysos’ actions, sparing Dionysos both from experiencing emotional pain and from experiencing the struggle of an endless, recursive life where he must play the same roles despite having changed. The reader therefore does not experience the catharsis associated with Aristotelian tragedy.

    The audience does not experience catharsis from I Am Not Sidney Poitier because they, rather than Not Sidney, create his fate. Not Sidney does not have hamartia (Murfin, Ray 186), or errors in judgement. He makes decisions based on how he is “[his] own person, so I…believed” (Everett 45), which prompts him to leave the school where his resemblance to Sidney Poitier was used by Miss Hancock as a justification for raping him (Everett 30). Instead, completely nonsensical events shape him into Sidney Poitier, making him the object, not the subject, of his life. He sees a body which he identifies as himself, which makes him Sidney Poitier through double negation (Everett 212). He is Sidney Poitier through structural and cosmic irony (Murfin, Ray 219). The audience knows that he will become Sidney Poitier because he is associated with this non-fictional public figure. Because Sidney Poitier is non-fictional, and is the “generic reference point for all black actors,”, a character named “Not Sidney Poitier” would automatically be associated with Sidney Poitier the actor before he could even demonstrate his personality to the society that forced him to take on the role of Sidney Poitier. The audience and its preconceptions therefore create the tragic structure of the novel: it is built between the non-fictional world of distant celebrity and the personal realm of the individual. The fictionalized versions of real people are echoes of the real world, and are caricatured as a response to how the world views them. Ted Turner speaking in non-sequiturs is an allusion to his influence outside the novel: he is perceived as being the thing which he is associated with, television and the white noise it produces. Jane Fonda is little more than a sex symbol in I Am Not Sidney Poitier, as society has conflated the entirety of her “self” with that aspect of herself. In a similar vein, Not Sidney is conflated with Sidney Poitier by the audience that sees them as similar in physique and race, which causes Not Sidney, who initially did not fit into his role, to be used by the arbitrary plot points to the end of becoming Sidney Poitier. The audience does not receive catharsis from I Am Not Sidney Poitier because they are among the forces that caused Not Sidney’s life to end by being absorbed into Sidney Poitier’s existence.

    Dionysos and Not Sidney Poitier are not tragic heroes for opposing reasons. Dionysos is not a tragic hero because he shirks his responsibilities, choosing to be killed as a human instead of suffering with his godly destiny. In contrast Not Sidney takes on the burdens from our society, and loses his humanity despite his choice to be an individual.

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An Icon of American Character

Reflecting on one’s actions and transforming from one’s realizations “is what education and learning are about” (Williams, Wooliams, Spiro 121). One transforms into a version of oneself who is better suited to achieve one’s goals. But what are we reflecting on? Are we reflecting on ourselves, or is it possible that we can observe a version of ourselves through the lens of what we “should” become based on American societal values? Can we claim that we are entirely ourselves just because we are not physically the role models our society believes we should become? Continue reading “An Icon of American Character”

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Composbite

There is snow on the ground. Those walking outside without mittens, jackets, and scarves might physically develop a condition known as “frostbite.” I know that to acquire frostbite is to have the tissue under one’s skin frozen. It’s a condition that could land one in a hospital. That’s science. That’s just how my body works. It’s my irrational mind that tells me to put on flip-flops while leaving my dorm. My brain is part of me that decides to make risky decisions that the spirit of frostbite (which hovers ten feet above Geneseo in November) loves. But is my brain not a part of my body? And although my actions are irrational, can they be separated from the organ that creates my risk taking behavior? Continue reading “Composbite”

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That Not Sidney Sure is Something

While supporting characters within the world of I Am Not Sidney Poitier, are flat caricatures, Not Sidney is characterized as being made real through a combination of story, dream, history, and his own lived reality. Supporting characters in the novel serve as conceptual backdrops, Not Sidney alone experiencing the world through the modes of reality, unreality, and hyperreality. I Am Not Sidney Poitier therefore creates verisimilitude for Not Sidney and for the audience.

Continue reading “That Not Sidney Sure is Something”