But then, that observation dug into my mind, and I realized, that in the entire book, I could only think of two named, relatively consequential, female characters: Earline and Charlotte. And, even with those two, they didn’t seem to have a very large part in the story. The two are second to pro-Jes Grew, fairly prominent black men, with Earline as Papa LaBas’ assistant and Charlotte doing things for Berbelang.
Think about it: both Earline and Charlotte seem involved with Jes Grew and its spread, yet (as far as I can remember) Earline is mentioned only in regard to the Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral and her possession by a loa, and Charlotte is mentioned only in regard to the Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral, her involvement in plays of some sort, and her murder by Musclewhite.
Charlotte’s lack of a presence seems fairly realistic to me, though I question why she wasn’t involved with the mutafikah alongside Berbelang, but what seems extremely odd is Earline’s lack of involvement. She enters the story momentarily at the beginning of the novel and then disappears for a while, reappears to have sex with a married man, get a loa separated from her, and then disappear again. Why is she not involved in LaBas’ movements?
It is, of course, possible that Earline is completely oblivious to the surrounding conflict of Jes Grew versus the Atonists, but that seems unlikely. As Papa LaBas’ assistant, one might imagine that Earline would be by LaBas’ side (at times other than when he is at a party), but instead, he is trailed by Black Herman and/or T Malice, two black men who also seem to be involved with the Kathedral.
So, why are these women kicked to the background? Well, at least in the party scene 159, it seems to me that Earline (Charlotte is dead at this point) is excluded because she is a woman: weak and unable to handle to horrors of disrupting a party. Another woman mentioned in the scene, the Hostess, pushes this stereotype by fainting not once, but twice.
Ok, so maybe the men in the story feel that Earline is too feminine for their work, but why would Reed write his female characters like this in his novel? This is something which, despite extensive thought, I have been unable to find a reason for. It baffles me, because, as we have discussed in class, he is specifically reversing the roles of black and white cultures in terms of superiority and writing white characters like white people wrote black characters in order to make a point about oppression. Why would he ignore the struggle of women, black and white? From what we know about him as an author, it doesn’t seem like something he would purposefully skip over. Like I said, I’m not really sure. Maybe he just didn’t want ideas about sexism to disrupt his overall message about racism or something like that. Who knows.
Honestly, does anyone have any ideas? It’s hard to base anything off of anything on this topic, seeing as there are very few female characters to study, but I’m sure one of you brilliant minds can think of something other than what I have hypothesized above.
Note: Here’s the link to a song that made up of words from Mumbo Jumbo that I found on YouTube. It’s sort of jazzy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjdRgzW90E
I also find it interesting that Reed neglected the idea of feminism so much because I feel like it wouldn't be too difficult to include the ideas of feminism and Jes Grew in the same book. It's not like feminism and Jes Grew are so distantly related: there are black women who experience the ideas of Jes Grew and the Atonists fighting it AND experience life as a woman in the 1920s, so it seems like a peculiar decision on Reed's behalf to neglect women so much.
ReplyDeleteI think that Mumbo Jumbo's ignorance towards women of the 1920s says a lot about Reed as an author. As he was writing during the era of second-wave feminism, it's not like the idea of women speaking up for their rights was foreign to his time. Additionally, the 1920s was literally the Flapper's era - she is an essential part to the progressiveness of jazz, and as a result, is important to the spread of Jes Grew. So the fact that Reed chose to portray all female characters as subordinate and under male control shows that he wasn't as postmodern as some claim him to be... How can he be totally postmodern if he only believes in the empowerment of African Americans but not of females?
ReplyDeleteThis is a good blog post! I also 100% agree with Grace's comment. I've toyed back and forth with wondering why Reed neglected women so much in his book. Out of hopefulness, I'm wondering whether Reed neglected women because the rest of his book was so "forward thinking" for the time in which he published it. Obviously this is a stupid excuse but I'm stuck on what else Reed could've defended his decision to neglect women with.
ReplyDeleteI'm really struggling to reconcile Reed's lack of feminist characters with the forward-thinking and forward-moving ideas of the Jes Grew movement. Obviously women were involved in Jes Grew, not only in the Kathedral as Charlotte and Earline were, but also in the dancing (as Grace said, this was the era of the flapper). The idea of intersectional feminism was not a part of the 1920s feminist movement (correct me if I'm wrong!), and maybe Reed wanted to make this part more realistic (we only have in-depth knowledge on Earline and Charlotte, who wouldn't have gained much from the feminist movement in the 20s)? But writing from 1972 it strikes me as odd that Reed doesn't subvert this power structure as he does to other ones. I'm stuck--I really want to support Reed, but it's really hard to when he ignores such a widespread issue in a book that is all about challenging constricting values and norms.
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