52 pages • 1 hour read
Percival EverettJames: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Language
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an early example of a novel written entirely in dialect. That the text did not employ standard English set it apart at the time of its publication. Although many readers struggled with the difficulty of the language, its use of dialect was groundbreaking, and it paved the way for other works of English-language literature that employed vernacular. Everett engages with that history but complicates it. In James, the white characters speak to one another in standard English, but so too do the enslaved characters. Enslaved people code-switch, meaning they change from standard English to dialect when in the presence of white people. This is because they understand that enslavers expect them to use dialect: They see them as inferior, as less than human. The truth is quite far from that, and James and his fellow enslaved men and women are a thoughtful, intelligent, literary bunch.
The novel’s use of language, then, is a meta-commentary on the birth and perpetuation of racist stereotypes. During the pre-emancipation era and even well into the 20th century, many believed the racist lie that white people were naturally more intelligent than their Black counterparts. Real intelligence, in the world of James, lies within the Black rather than the white community: It is the novel’s Black characters who understand that there is little intellectual difference between white and Black people, and that the failure of the enslavers to realize this basic truth amounts to an intellectual failing on their part. The use of dialect around white enslavers becomes one way that the enslaved characters protect themselves from violence: They conform to stereotype to be less noticeable and therefore less threatening to white people looking to preserve racist power structures and social hierarchies. At the same time, their use of standard English among themselves becomes a site of resilience: In spite of racist oppression, violence, and enslavement, the enslaved characters in this novel maintain dignity, humanity, intelligence, and agency.
Religion
Religion is a large part of the lives of the enslaved characters in James, and this is a historically accurate representation of white efforts to Christianize Black Americans during the years leading up to emancipation. Although there is now a longstanding history of Black Christian churches in the United States and Christianity is an important part of culture in many Black American communities, the novel’s views of Christianity are less favorable. This text interrogates the racism within Christian history and doctrine. Jim points out very early on in the narrative that Christianity is a tool of control employed by enslavers to keep the enslaved docile and obedient. He argues that it makes little sense for a religion supposedly devoted to equality, kindness, and humanism to sanction and even encourage enslavement. He notes that the idea that the enslaved should obey their enslavers and lead “Christian” lives so as to be rewarded in Heaven is little more than a ruse to discourage free thinking and rebellion. This speaks to the theme of The Brutality of Enslavement and illustrates the subtler ways in which white supremacy manifested itself in the pre-emancipation US. In addition to using physical violence and family separation to oppress the enslaved, white enslavers employed belief systems like Christianity as tools of psychological manipulation and control. Jim’s unwillingness to believe in the Christian God therefore also speaks to the theme of Resilience in the Face of Racist Silencing because his refusal to accept such a belief system becomes a source of agency and pride.
Jim’s Dreams of “Great” Thinkers and Writers
Jim has many dreams in which he converses with thinkers like Voltaire and other key Enlightenment voices. This motif speaks directly to the theme of Resilience in the Face of Racist Silencing in that it showcases not only Jim’s keen intellect but also the way that he applies that intellect to his analysis of the institution of enslavement. At the core of each of these dream conversations is Jim’s desire to interrogate the “great” thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries about the cognitive dissonance evident in their supposed commitment to liberalism, democracy, and humanism and their unwillingness to condemn enslavement. Jim is, of course, accurate in this observation, and in the years since emancipation many other thinkers and writers have engaged with these problematic discrepancies within the work of Enlightenment thinkers and many of the founders of the United States. Although Huck wrestles with enslavement and ethics, Jim’s voice is this novel’s primary mouthpiece for its broader themes and ideas, and it is important that that mouthpiece is a character who is both Black and enslaved. Again, this is part of the novel’s meta-commentary on the dangers of stereotype: The white characters fail to see their lack of ethics, morals, and critical thinking ability. It is the enslaved characters who can see the inhumanity of enslavement clearly. This motif also speaks to the systemic nature of oppression, which is embedded in the very belief systems that underpin the American government, its ethos, and early notions about American cultural identity.
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By Percival Everett
