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1. The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man and Haunch, Paunch and Jowl: Two Versions of Passing
- University of Iowa Press
- Chapter
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T he Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man and Haunch, Paunch and Jowl serve here as the first two examples of ethnic literary revisions of the Bildungsroman. Both are also parodies of the autobiographical genre, particularly the autobiographical success story, a genre known in the U.S. since Benjamin Franklin. They adopt the individualist focus of the traditional Bildungsroman and autobiography only to make their protagonists failures because of their exaggerated individualism. Thus, both novels argue that, for their ethnic protagonists, a more (ethnic) communalist orientation would have led to a more fulfilling and, as the plots strongly imply, more ethical life. In effect, the genre revisions performed by the two works are the result of their preoccupation with ethnic identity and of the influence ethnic nationalism exerts on them, and it is this preoccupation and its similar manifestations in both novels which this chapter will explore. James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man was published anonymously in 1912, purporting to withhold its author’s name so as to avoid compromising him. In this way, the protagonist is able to reveal “the great secret of [his] life” (3) without having to give up his cover—he is passing. In fact, the anonymity was also a sales trick as “Johnson . . . felt that curiosity about the author” (Levy 126) would increase public interest. In addition, few African American novels had been published, while African American autobiography was a well-established genre, reaching from Frederick Douglass to Booker T. Washington (Goellnicht 18). However, the trick did not work: the novel initially received little attention. The novel’s publishing company, Sherman, French & Co., closed its doors soon after publication, and even the black press offered few, though positive, comments (Levy 127, Collier “Endless Journey” 365). The book was republished in 1927 and has not been forgotten since. Chapter ONE The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man and Haunch, Paunch and Jowl: Two Versions of Passing The history of Samuel Ornitz’s Haunch, Paunch and Jowl reverses that of the Autobiography. Though, at the time of its publication, it seemed to have touched a nerve and was a “commercial success, selling in excess of one hundred thousand copies” (Miller “Samuel Ornitz” 210), the book has now been virtually relegated to the dusty back shelves of literary history and little has been published on it. Pocket Books published a paperback edition in 1968, and the book is currently in print again, after Markus Wiener Publishers brought it back on the market in 1985. Like the Autobiography, Haunch, Paunch and Jowl appeared anonymously in hopes that “the book would sell better if the public thought it the actual memoir of a judge who had died five years earlier” (Miller “Samuel Ornitz” 209). Similar to Johnson, Ornitz had few predecessors when it came to Jewish American novelists. According to Gabriel Miller, “There was then no ‘American Jewish novel’ as it has come to be known, no sense of tradition. . . . Only a few American Jewish novels had appeared” (“Introduction” xi). The novel’s reception in the Jewish community was mixed: “The book attracted much attention. Contemporary newspaper accounts chronicle sermons by rabbis who damned it as ‘lecherous and degrading.’ . . . On the other hand, many Jews and Jewish organizations praised the novel. It was serialized in two working class papers, the Morning Freiheit in America and, years later, in the Rote Fahne in Germany” (Miller “Samuel Ornitz” 210). Given the plot of the novel, the responses were predictable : Ornitz (as a narrative presence) does not openly reject Judaism— though the protagonist does—but the novel seems to suggest that socialism of a kind ought to be the new Jewish (and American) religion. Like Johnson’s novel, it is about a kind of passing: the protagonist lives in a Jewish American community, poses (or passes) as a dedicated Jew, but suppresses all emotional ties to his community, rising to success on the backs of his fellow Lower East Siders. While there are differences in the kinds of passing that the protagonists enact, both novels imply, through the careers of their main characters, that the success they gain comes at a high price: their ethnic heritage. This heritage appears as intrinsically connected to everything that may serve as the opposite of materialism, be it idealism, spirituality, or artistic ability. It is this conceptualization of ethnicity that reveals both novels’ debt to ethnic nationalism. Accordingly, both the Autobiography and Haunch show that following the path of...