The Elements of Black Literature

There are several key elements that make a book black literature. Certain themes are usually present such as cyclic time rather than linear time, the struggle to overcome oppression, a desire for freedom and justice, rebellion, resistance, overcoming obstacles of social injustice, finding one's ancestors, a loss of innocence, good and evil, and many others. Motifs often have to do with animals, water, the earth, nature, and music. Characters usually have to overcome a struggle, but at the same time experience some loss. Dialogue is often used in black literature in varying degrees. Black literature is also characterized as being written by a black author and having some connection with a specifically black experience.

"The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man" begins with the story of a young boy who does not know that he is black. He has been born into a wealthy family; his mother is light-skinned and his absent father is white. From the beginning of the novel, when the Ex-Coloured Man is a schoolboy, James Weldon Johnson breaks stereotypes by making "Shiny", a dark black skinned character the most intelligent one in the class. The boy called "Red Head" who is very fair skinned is the child who has been held back several years and is not intelligent. "Red Head" gets a job in a bank eventually through his family ties, while "Shiny" has to work hard to get his job as a professor. The Ex-Coloured Man tries to go to college in the South, but loses his savings so he cannot afford to go. However, he still tries to live as a black man in the South for a while. He always seems like a spectator looking into black life and does not ever fit in, and he even has to tell those he is talking to that he is black. Eventually, The Ex-Coloured man decides that it is easier to live as a white man in the North because he is light enough to pass for white. There, he quickly and easily finds success as a white man. This is another way that James Weldon Johnson uses his characters to illustrate the belief that white people have it easy.

Many themes are present throughout "The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man". The first theme we encounter is the loss of innocence of the main character. The Ex-Coloured Man starts out believing that he is white, even throwing rocks at the black children in one scene. His mother does not want him to know that he is black, yet he finds this out when his teacher says, "I wish all of the white scholars to stand for a moment." (16) At that point, he stands up and she tells him to sit back down and rise with the others. The Ex-Coloured man is very confused and has to ask his mother if it is true that he is black. She finally tells him that he is black, but reassures him that he also has white blood in him from his father. In this way, The Ex-Coloured Man's mother enforces the stereotype that blacks are inferior; she makes his father, who is not even a good man, seem better than her, the woman raising him. This causes The Ex-Coloured Man to have a sense of loss, which is another theme in black literature. No one else perceives him differently, but he perceives himself as inferior from that point on. He later decides to find his roots, community, and identity as a black man, and goes to the South to find his mother's people (he does not acknowledge that they are his people too). After enduring some extreme hardships, The Ex-Coloured man decides to live as a white man. 'Finding one's roots' and overcoming hardships also themes in the novel and in black literature in general. In addition to these important themes, black literature tends to have some use of dialect.

In "The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man" all of the childhood characters speak standard American English. However, once The Ex-Coloured man arrives in the South he is amused with the dialect of the people there. He has "read some Negro dialect and had heard snatches of it" but it is fairly new to him. (56) The Ex-Coloured Man points out some phrases to the readers as examples, "Lawd a mussy!" "Bless ma soul!" "Look heah, chile!" In a way, he seems like a white person making fun of the Southerners. In this book, only those in the South speak in dialect and not as much time is spent there. Johnson seems to use to dialect to show how the Ex-Coloured Man perceives himself as different from other blacks.

Johnson's book contains a music motif. The Ex-Coloured Man starts out playing piano as a child. He states of his skill: "I can believe that I did astonish my audience, for I never played the piano like a child." (26) In his egotism, he almost gets to the point of bragging excessively about his abilities. His pride is also a bit of a racial pride: he considers ragtime music and the cakewalk as two of the four greatest achievements of coloured people. Later in the novel he plays ragtime in a club and then works for a millionaire who engages him for his skills. To him, music is his talent, his way of earning a living, a way to express himself, and also a way to bring people joy. When he becomes white, he gives up on music and all that it meant to him. Music is important to many characters throughout black literature.

The opening scene of "Song of Solomon" starts with a crowd gathered waiting for Mr. Smith to "fly." Ruth is walking with her daughters First Corinthians and Magdalena called Lena. Guitar is present as a small boy. Pilate is there singing. Ruth is heavily pregnant and ends up going to the hospital the next day to give birth, making Macon Dead III the first black baby to be born "inside [Mercy's] wards and not on its steps." (5) Macon Dead III is soon nicknamed Milkman by Freddie, when he is caught nursing at too old an age for that. His house is a rather boring place for a child to grow up, so he soon finds ways to leave and play with Guitar. Milkman and Guitar start to visit Pilate, his crazy aunt, and there they are able to relax. As soon as Macon Dead Jr., Milkman's father, finds out about these visits to see Pilate, he has Milkman start working for him collecting rent so that the visits will stop. This action only increases Milkman's time to go see Pilate and her daughter Reba and granddaughter Hagar, who he falls in love with. Despite being related to Hagar, Milkman has a sexual relationship with her for a while. He often sees other women and then goes back to Hagar and generally does not think highly of her. When Milkman is finally bored of Hagar and wants to leave her permanently, he refers to her as "the third beer" which is "the one you drink because it's there, because it can't hurt." (91) Soon after that Milkman and Guitar go in search of gold, due to Milkman's father's insistence that Pilate has gold that she and Macon found in their childhood. Milkman finds a bag of bones rather than gold and leaves the state in his search. Rather than finding gold, he finds out that the bag of bones is really Pilate's father, Macon Dead Sr. who was a very great man from what he heard from those who knew him. Milkman finds out in the end that there really was never any gold.

In "Song of Solomon" several themes are presented. Milkman experiences a loss of innocence when he receives his nickname. He learns that his afternoons nursing were "strange and wrong." (14) Later Milkman has to learn responsibility, another common theme. Macon Dead Jr. teaches his son to work for him so that he may learn the important responsibility of work and the lessons important to his survival. Macon tells his son "it's time you started learning how to work" and gives him the advice to "own things" so that he may prosper in this world. (55) When Milkman goes to find the gold, in a way he is also searching for his roots, his community, and his identity without knowing what his search is at first. This is another common theme in black literature, as is finding one's ancestors. Milkman shows pride when he finds out that his great grandfather, Jake Solomon, was famous for flying away from Shalimar. He shouts to everyone who will listen, "He could fly! You hear me? My great-granddaddy could fly!" (328) Finally Milkman has some pride in where he came from.

Most of the characters in "Song of Solomon" speak standard American English. When Milkman gets to Danville we hear a bit of dialect, such as "leave 'er here. Back a the pop crates." (227) Milkman notices that in Danville people speak more slowly and do not have such a fast paced attitude about things such as he is used to. However, the people in Danville are for the most part easy to understand when they are talking. In Shalimar again there is only a silent dialect, such as "You want me to see 'bout your car for you?" (263) Again the people in this town are easily understood. There is not much use of dialect in "Song of Solomon".

There are several motifs in "Song of Solomon". Names are a big motif in this book. Almost all of the characters have names from the Bible, starting with Pilate. When Pilate's father picked out her name the nurse told him it was a terrible name because Pilate killed Christ and "[y]ou can't get much worse than that for a name." (19) After Pilate is named from the Bible, she names her daughter from the Bible as well. Macon Dead Jr. also picks names from the Bible for his two daughters. Another motif is gold, which runs all throughout the book. Eventually in the end, we discover that there never really was any gold. The gold was all in their minds, but it did fuel the search for family history. Flying is another motif that is present throughout the book. It starts with Mr. Smith wanting to fly away, then Pilate calls Milkman a bird, and later Milkman discovers that his great grandfather was said to have flown back to Africa. Once again we see music as well, which also turns out to be related to the history of the Solomon family. Pilate is always singing because she thinks her father told her to. The people of Shalimar are singing to keep alive the myth of Solomon flying back to Africa. There are many other motifs as well in this book.

While many of the issues in black literature change over time, the predominant aspects of black literature remain intact. Slavery may be a less common theme as time goes on, but the search for roots, identity, and community should remain. Motifs throughout many of the books we read were often similar. There were some changes due to the time periods. In "The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man" there was a music motif focusing mainly on ragtime, while in "Blues for Mister Charlie" the music motif focused on the blues. The general motif of music was still there however, only the type of music had changed with the time period. In the past, present, and probably the future, characters will remain classifieds as good and evil. The characters may have different struggles to overcome during different time periods, but the overall ideas do not seem to have changed. Dialogue may change due to time, but even a fairly recent book such as "The Color Purple" used dialogue, even more so than older books we read. Although "The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man" seems very different from "Song of Solomon", both are excellent examples of black literature and show the main characteristics necessary to make a work black literature.