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English professor Betsy Huang and student Johnny Siever explore the racial and ethnic tensions revealed in the works of American writers Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray, and Sherman Alexie. |
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Subverting the dominant culture: laughter and the blues
Professor Betsy Huang's research
"I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and
destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open." -Grandfather's
advice to grandson in Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
By conforming to rules of docile behavior as defined by a dominant culture, disempowered people
throughout history have attempted to deflect the hostility and suspicion of their oppressors.
With what is an often precarious hold on supremacy, members of dominant cultures are particularly
sensitive to any behavior or form of personal expression by members of the underclass that
could be conceived of as ridiculing, challenging, or threatening their authority and privilege.
In an effort to retain some semblance of their humanity, disempowered peoples have found ways-
often via artistic expression-to comment on injustice, to be visible, and to turn the tables, if
only for a moment, on their rulers.
English professor Betsy Huang
and undergraduate Johnny Siever '05 are interested in literature that explores the emotional
interactions between dominant and subject cultures. Numerous writers from subject cultures
worldwide have used writing to examine how oppressed cultures express themselves, and how
dominant cultures respond to behavior that doesn't conform to their rules.
In a recent
interview, Siever discussed how two novelists, one African American and one Native
American, weave an understanding of the blues, a form of musical lamentation and catharsis,
into two novels, Albert Murray's Train Whistle Guitar and Sherman Alexie's
Reservation Blues. A native of Alabama and graduate of Tuskegee Institute, Murray (b. 1916)
is a jazz, social, and literary critic, while Alexie, born in 1966 on the Spokane Indian
Reservation in Washington State, has made a name for himself as a poet, novelist, and short
story writer.
One of Murray's close friends was Ralph Ellison, subject of a
recent essay by Betsy Huang. Huang examines the role of laughter in the writings of
Ellison, notably his essay 'An Extravagance of Laughter' and his novel Invisible Man.
Ellison (1914-1994) needed laughter in his life. Although becoming, in 1953, the first
African-American to receive the National Book Award for what was to be the only novel
published in his lifetime,1 Invisible Man, he grew up in Oklahoma at a
time when Jim Crow laws perpetuated the oppression of African Americans. A talented jazz
musician who had at one time intended to be a sculptor, Ellison turned to writing as a way
to explore the troubling and troubled relationship between blacks and whites in the United
States. In 'An Extravagance of Laughter,' Ellison reflects on an incident where he, in the
midst of a mainly white audience, gave vent to loud and uncontrollable laughter during a
scene in the play Tobacco Road.
Huang uses 'An Extravagance of Laughter' as a starting point for reflecting on the meanings
and purposes of laughter in Ellison's writing. Laughter can be used and (mis)interpreted in
many ways. What is the context of the laughter? Who is laughing and who is being laughed at?
Is the laughter controlled or hysterical? When is laughter a substitute for tears? Ellison
understood that, because of the tense, subtle, and complex relationship between a subject
and a dominant culture, laughter coming from a black person could fill whites with unease.
An understanding of laughter, like an understanding of the blues, can be a starting point
for understanding how an oppressed culture holds on and endures.
1Juneteenth, Ellison's second novel, was published posthumously in 2000.
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