Analysis of the Novel “Erasure by Percival Everett”

Analysis of the Novel “Erasure by Percival Everett”

The author of the novel is Thelonious Ellison. The author focuses on discussing his personal opinion on the existence of race and racism. The author outlines that, in his opinion, the human race does not exist (Hui & Yuanyuan 2019: 33-37). However, according to the world that he lives in, he is seen as black. The author is encouraged to quite writing articles about the myths of Greek. Instead, write articles that address the situation and circumstances facing the black community in the United States.

The author of the novel has taken time to go through articles written by other authors. He is disturbed by the issue of authors who write articles that support racism can be successful, yet he does not. The author, the Monk, writes a parody version of a particular novel from a different author. He is, however, very ashamed of himself, such that he does not put his real name on the parody of the book.

The parody talks about a young African-American man who lives in the Ghetto of the United States. The man is identified by the character name Van Go Jenkins. Jenkins is involved in the practice of raping multiple women and does not care to pay for the children he has fathered through his rape actions (Hui & Yuanyuan 2019: 33-37). Later, Jenkins move to the studio, where he intends to dispute about being the father to several children that he fathered by raping various women in his past life. The police storms into the studio with his arrest warrant for raping a woman by the name Dalton. After writing the parody for the novel, Monk struggles to have it accepted by the authorities (Hui & Yuanyuan 2019: 33-37). He is happy for the income to be generated from the book because he needed it to take care of his sick mother. He is, however, not pleased by the content of the book. He has no courage to be associated with the book and, therefore, does not want it to be published. He finds himself at a crossroads to decide on whether to publish the book or not.

Just like the author of the original novel, Monk accepts to attend several interviews concerning the parody of the book that he wrote. He is so dreadful that he might be mistaken to share the same line of thoughts as the original author of the novel. On one occasion, Monk decides to take his retired mother to a retirement home. It is here that he finds a woman that lived close to a professor that Monk new from his childhood. The two acquaintances finally develop intimacy, and they become lovers. His mother’s conditions get from bad to worse, and Monk decides to take her to a nursing home where she could seek caring.

After a series of struggles to keep up with the original author’s persona, he gets recognized by the National Book Association, and they invite him to sit in a panel for the awarding of the book. He willingly accepts the invitation, but he is ashamed of the name of his book. He had renamed the book to “Fuck,” and he feared that he might find the name among the other nominated titles of books (Hui & Yuanyuan 2019: 33-37). More significant worries fill him when he thinks of his “Fuck” being nominated to be the winning novel. Finally, his book emerges to be the winning article. The audience and the panelists seem quite amused as Monk heads to the stage in confusion. His confusion is a result of trying to identify the boundaries between his role as Stagg and himself. Stagg is the original writer of the novel and the actual Monk.

The novel of Everett’s is not a simple story addressing some particular African-Americans. Instead, the book seeks to address the issue of racism the encounters the daily lives of the African-American community. How the novel addresses racism is quite different from how regular people perceive it. In the context of the book, racism occurs to be prejudice and not the other extreme and bitter manifestation of racism. The reception of the novel in society is different. The community does not regard the story as the real human art but instead labels the book as black-art (Lilly & Irene 2013: 10). This is another level of racism. This interpretation of the artwork from Monk changes the size of the audience for the novel. The audience shifts from universal to a specified audience. The specified audience referred to the African-American community. The novelist is fair enough to compliment that the character in the novel is a genius, who is well educated and has a good understanding of mythology and truth. Monks agents discourage him from writing stories about talents but instead, concentrate on addressing issues of black Americans. However, he chooses to write a parody of an existing novel named “My Pathology.” The theme of the book is a description of the expectations of society on black people (Lilly & Irene 2013: 10). It also explains how expectations define the perception of black people in the art industry. The novel is a satire that is designed to expose the genre of arts that is based on racism.

The novel presents the aspect of identity vividly throughout all the scenes in the storyline. The naming and identification of characters is an excellent example of this. Most of the names in the novel mention the protagonist’s emotions of a real artistic genius. In the book titled “My Pathology,” Monk refers to his character as “Van Gogh.” The name carries a satirical meaning. He has no objective of achieving any political issue, but he focuses on describing the real-life faced by the so-called black Americans.

The issue of identity is a vividly discussed in the novel. He is careful to describe himself and persona during the start or the introduction of the book. He even provides a detailed description of his physical appearance. “I have brown skin, curly hair, a broad nose, some of my ancestors were slaves…though I am fairly athletic, I am no good at basketball. … I graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, hating every minute of it.” He continues to claim that he does no slight element of believing in racism. His belief concerning the issue of race plays a significant role in determining how society appreciates or receives the book. He book continues to define other identities that are visible in the real world that the community is living in. For example, Monk describes his brother as gay, a status that ignited a lot of controversies and debates in society (Lilly & Irene 2013: 10). Monk explains how the issue of his brother being gay caused his brother’s divorce with his wife. The wife even tried to seek full .custody of the children from the court because of the identity of Monk’s brother. Monk’s sister presents another exhibition of character. Her personality is working at a particular medical facility. Monk’s sister is murdered because of her job. The murdering of his sister demonstrates how the society showed little or no respect for the value and dignity of lives for the black people in the community.

The black community was exposed to extreme racism. The society was full of racial stereotypes. Monk lets us understand that he had nowhere to run to escape the type of expectations tagged on him merely because of his skin color. On one occasion, Monks talks of his concern about why his work never succeeded compared to the work of other artists, who wrote their work based on racist concepts (Lilly & Irene 2013: 10). There is the primary reason as to why his work does not perform well in the American market. The idea is that the white community cannot understand the association of retelling Greek mythology with the African-American experiences. An example of this case is the success associated with a novel titled “Juanita Mae Jenkens.” It has a racist theme, and yet it performs so well that it gets to the position of being reproduced as a movie. The other novel titles “We’s Lives I a da Ghetto” has the central themes talking of realism and honesty. After analyzing the success of Jenkens, Monk gets to understand that for one to be successful in the community must acknowledge the stereotypic concepts of the society.

The black Americans’ identity had a significant impact on their human aspect of love. The novel reveals how Monk had trouble and challenges of making healthy and long-lasting relationships. He had a rough and un-peaceful relationship with a woman whose name was Linda. They experienced an unsatisfying sexual relationship. The primary cause of the troubles in his life was his stubborn and arrogant demeanor (Farebrother, 2015: 117-136). More so, the issue of black identity seems to cut across all in matters concerning love. Lisa is the sister to the author of the novel, Monk. Lisa has also experienced difficulties in her love life, just like her brother. Monk tells us that Lisa has broken up with her boyfriend.

Similarly, Bill has experienced divorce with his wife because of his identity as homosexuality. Monk takes her mother to a retirement home because of her condition. He meets with a lady that lived close to a professor that Monk new. The developed an intimate relationship that led to them falling in love. However, the author does not take us far to tell us how the relationship ended. Most probably, he does not want to talk about it because it did not work well on his part.

On the contrary, Monk’s housekeeper takes advantage of when Monk leaves to make a mother to a retirement home. The storekeeper takes the opportunity to marry. The issue of love based on identity brings about the point of family issues. Monk must be flexible enough to balance his profession, taking care of his mother, and playing the role of a big brother in his family (Farebrother, 2015: 117-136). There is more responsibility on Monk after the death of his sister, Lisa. This means that Monk was left with more responsibility for taking care of their aging mother. This became worse because his mother’s condition was getting from bad to worse, and she needs close attention than before. The novel presents the kind of relations where Monk did not move along well with his brother and sister. The reason for this was because of some favoritism that Monk received from his parents. It explains one of the main issues that take place daily in society.

Monk was able to share his real name with very few artists. The artist had one thing in common in that they were all from the African-American fraternity (Farebrother, 2015: 117-136). He does not want to get associated with anything to do with the so-called African-American art. When he creates the parody of a particular novel that addressed such issues, Monk was careful enough to distance himself from the book. He was even reluctant to have his name on the book. As if it is not enough, Monk has doubts and tension about his book winning the nominations. He even gets confused when his book is read out to be the winning book. He is confused about his identity at sometimes because Monk does not know the boundaries between his real personality and that Monk took from writing the parody. He has to be reminded that he is different, even when around his own family. The experiences of injustices by his people hang so attached in him. This makes his writing get so attached to his interests because of the status of the African-American community.

Monk is an individual of high intellectual ability and understanding. The combination makes him a great writer. He even gets several compliments about his genius work on Greek mythology. However, the qualities happen to deter him from success in the community (Farebrother, 2015: 117-136). He loses his success to part of the society that has none of the above attributes, and this opens Monk’s inner eyes and understanding. He realizes that success is not about wisdom, knowledge, and intellectual capabilities. It is about knowing and practicing the stereotypic concepts of racism in the community. The most successful writers had a good mastery of these concepts. As a person of black identity, the failure of acknowledging these concepts narrowed down the size of the market for your books. The reason is that a writer who did not discuss racism lost the market for the white community (Christina, 2012). An example of this scenario is demonstrated by the case of Juanita Mae Jenkins, who gets very successful for writing racist themes in his work. His work also contains elements of prostitution, unplanned pregnancies for underage, and violence. All the issues mentioned there before targeted the life and experiences of the African-Americans. Monk also gets to taste some success in the industry when he writes a parody of Jenkens’ book.

The novel has achieved quite a lot in describing the experiences of the writers associated with the African-American people in the United States. They have a lot of challenges when narrating their life experiences in the world. Their work is not taken seriously as the work from white writers who write to mock the African-American writers and their community at large.