LITR 5731:
Seminar in American Multicultural Literature: Minority
Sample
Student Research Project
corey porter!
12.9.07
Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist: The Elevation of
a Race, or
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Use the Escalator
In the interests of candor and brevity:
Initially maligned to the fringes of the dominant culture, Black America was expected to operate on the outskirts of mainstream society; thus the culture would never have a pronounced position in the make-up of the country. What black culture has done, however, is try to equate itself through socioracial mobility. Black culture has been singled out, regulated, or outright stolen, yet manages to persevere; more than that, it represents American culture (in language, music, sports, etc). Once crammed into the tiniest recesses of society, black culture has found a voice, and in said voice, power. I believe Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist offers a stunning example of such an (embrace the ridiculous pun) elevation.
And why? An introduction.
I first read The Intuitionist in my final year of undergrad. Dr. Howard Rambsy: he was always first to the classroom. As we students’d straggle in, he’d have a boombox sounding the air around us—pumping the room with the likes of John Coltrane or The Roots. We read Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks and explored other forms of Black culture in non-traditional media; but ultimately, it was a literature course. So we read.
Whitehead’s novel first left me minutely nonplussed: I gathered from it an underlying sense of upward racial mobility (which I believe is The Intuitionist’s primary theme), yet I was unable to place the work in the context of Dr. Rambsy’s overtly-contemporary teachings. Until now.
I started rereading the book this semester, gearing up for this journal. I thought I could take another run at deciphering why we had read the work in the first place, and against the backdrop of Objective 1a (the involuntarily participation of African-Americans in the majority culture), I developed a theory. Black Americans, as the objective suggests, are the primary recipients of bigotry and racism in this country. One might argue that black/white relations have been at the forefront of American politics for the past two centuries, so tension is to be expected where the two cultures meet: the conflict lies in the majority culture’s inability to assimilate the minority culture into itself. I think it’s a possibility, however, that American culture is so heavily influenced by black culture, that there will always be an overly-vocal bloc of people who reject it outright, citing its destructive or corrosive qualities on American values. Such opponents fail to recognize that America is a country built by immigrants and infused with their cultures; the very idea of one ingredient “tainting” the melting pot is ridiculous—a slurry is a slurry: America is an amalgamation.
So I think Dr. Rambsy may have been trying to introduce us to The Intuitionist’s finer allegorical values—the idea that the minority culture has risen to a place of prominence alongside the majority culture (in some areas—language, music, etc.—even subsuming it) through its unique specialized knowledge; its popular cultural influence. By embracing even the smallest amounts of power at every opportunity, a once-minority culture has ascended to become the majority.
An adventure begins…
I started at the Library, where searching for secondary texts proved difficult. Anchor Books first published The Intuitionist in 1999, so I thought articles might be scarce; I found a number of short reviews—designed to rate the book in a mere matter of inches—and only three hits on EBSCO, and of those, one compared the novel to two other texts. I ordered the two remaining books via Amazon and pulled a third from the required readings of another of this semester’s classes. Initially worried that the articles would prove inadequate, I am now pleasantly satisfied I’ve been able to write this much—for surely I wouldn’t have invested so much time in beginning a journal I couldn’t complete?
· Saundra Liggins’ piece piqued in me a pleasant reminder of last year’s American Romanticism course. “The Urban Gothic Vision of Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist (1999)” is clever reading of the primary source as a contemporary Gothic novel. Liggins argues an “urban gothic” backdrop for a story set in a “dismal landscape: [t]he US metropolis, …brooding and pessimistic, rife with scandal, deception and treachery (36).” The argument is entirely plausible, and really strives to impress upon the reader the nearly-universal applicability and relevance of Gothic modes.
· Michael Bérubé’s “Race and Modernity in Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist” reads like a play-by-play of the text—very tedious, yet informative—which highlights the novel’s theme of racial “uplift (163).” The text is largely useless, only occasionally does it stray from its formulaic reduction of the novel, and even then, is largely forgettable. I’m happy with the book the essay in collected in, however; it features two essays discussing works of Neal Stephenson, my favorite author. Good buy.
· “Black Culture and Postmodernism,” by Cornel West, has nothing to do with The Intuitionist, save that it tackles black culture with postmodernist arms. West argues that US mass culture is “disproportionately influenced by black people,” citing prominence in “popular music, linguistic innovation, and athletics (394).” This essay has everything to do with our class’s ongoing “voice and choice” flirtation, arguing that even if black culture’s collective voice lay outside of political or economic forums, it is doubly more powerful in its sway over American culture as a whole.
In addition to these physical sources, I’ve a couple virtual: Wikipedia and Google. We’ve chatted over the relevance of Wikipedia before, so I won’t waste any time preaching to the choir, as it were. As for Google, I used it only as a gauge (as noted in the introduction). While it’s admittedly true that Google’s results have been tampered with in the past—i.e. companies using guerilla advertising on the web to improve their search results, the Googleplex deciding to filter results, etc.—it remains the most accessible (and swiftest) survey of American culture readily available to me. Furthermore, I argue for its inclusion on the basis that the internet is substantial part of daily routines and similarly, an increasingly vital resource in understanding and shaping culture.
I sat down with the texts before my computer and began forging these elements into the single, unified argument with which I now leave you…
Call.
Lila Mae Watson is the one,” James Fulton writes in the margins of his notebook (253). Colson Whitehead’s protagonist in his The Intuitionist is exactly as her would-be mentor describes her, “the one.” Lila Mae Watson is a singular entity adrift among the vast expanses of Whitehead’s imagined “most famous city in the world:” The Big Skyscraper. Lila Mae does her best not to make waves among her white, male counterparts—though as the city’s (and perhaps the world’s) first black female elevator inspector, she often finds herself swept up alongside forces much larger than her. Lila Mae faces incredible power differentials, not only within the Department of Elevator Inspectors, but outside it as well, where she is almost always the lone denominator beneath overwhelmingly large (or multiple) numerators. It is within this imbalance of power that Whitehead casts Lila Mae, “the one,” against the many. What makes such an equation all the more fascinating is Whitehead’s comprehensive exploration of the difficulties facing “colored ‘firsts.’” As Michael Bérubé poses, “Whitehead frames the novel’s major ideological conflict…as an allegory of debates over professionalization and the production of specialized forms of knowledge in the past half century (163).”
Descent…
It is abundantly clear from the novel’s onset that Lila Mae Watson is cast opposite those she works alongside. When the reader is first introduced to Lila Mae, she is musing over the initials of inspectors still with the Guild of Elevator Inspectors (a mostly-fraternal order), it is evident Lila Mae does not get along with them. Furthermore, Lila Mae recognizes these men as Empiricists, inspectors who subscribe to a school of thought which places emphasis on physical interaction and visual investigation, wholly the opposite of Lila Mae’s Intuitionism, a brand of inspection founded by James Fulton which relies on an abstract relationship between elevator and inspector in which the elevator “speaks” to its inspector through complex and indefinite shapes and colors. Lila Mae’s dilemma is compounded thusly: she is the lone female and only the second black elevator inspector in the department’s history. Whitehead redoubles Lila Mae’s minority status by casting her as an Intuitionist, “one of those voodoo inspectors,” “witch doctors” about whom jokes are made within the department, a superintendent informs her (7). It is immediately evident to the reader that Whitehead has singled out his protagonist thrice. What may not be so clear is the reason: Whitehead isolates Lila Mae Watson from three institutions of power; she is a minority three times over.
In the eyes of her peers, Lila Mae differs little from the “colored men” in the motor pool. That is, she is beneath them. The space allotted to them by the Department “is underground, there are no windows permitting sky, and the sick light is all the more enervating for it (18).” They are black, so they are put out of sight. Both Lila Mae Watson and her mechanic-counterparts are relegated to the fringe—cast aside with little or no regard for their abilities or desires. It is within these edges, however, that the men in the motor pool and Lila Mae find the strength to turn the tables, as small as their victories may be. As Whitehead writes, for example:
A close inspection of Chancre’s campaign posters…reveals myriad tiny insurrections, such as counterclockwise swirls in the middle of Chancre’s pupils, an allusion to his famous nocturnal dipsomania. Horns, boiling cysts, the occasional cussword inked in across Chancre’s slat teeth—they add up after a while, somehow more personal and meaningful than the usual cartoon and pinups of office homesteading. No one notices them but they’re there, near-invisible, and count for something (18).
This small rebellion, if it may be called such, is a collective triumph of spirit. Though the power may lie firmly in the hands of the whites (quite literally) overhead, the black men of the motor pool prove such power exists in name only, for they are true masters of their domain.
Lila Mae Watson, for her part, rebels within the strict confines of her position. She has a one-hundred percent inspection record, an irksome thorn in the side of the Empiricists of her department. The “voodoo” Lila Mae practices defies the expectations of the white male establishment, going against all they expect from her, allowing Lila Mae the smallest of victories and any leverage her impeccable inspection record would command.
What the men in the motor pool and Lila Mae accomplish is a reversal of power in the most-unlikely of spaces. As Cornel West writes in his essay, “Black Culture and Postmodernism,” “…with political and economic avenues usually blocked, specific cultural arenas become the space wherein black resistance is channeled (395).” The politics of the department go a long way towards excluding Lila Mae and company since its bipartisan split lies along the line dividing Empiricists and Intuitionists; in this instance, the reader can imagine “specific cultural arenas” in braod strokes—Lila Mae does the best she can in the space allotted and the boys in the motor pool resist any application of power by assuming some of their own through tiny, almost indistinguishable vandalisms. “The mechanics have done their best to make it their own (18).” Lila Mae, likewise, finds relief in her dedication to (and unmatched success within) her job, despite the slurs attributed to both her and Intuitionism. It is this assumption by Lila Mae and the men of the motor pool that grant them power. By asserting ownership of what little they can, Lila Mae Watson and the men of the motor pool buck the power relationship imposed upon them by the predominately white Department of Elevator Inspectors.
Ascent!
Power divided along racial lines, such as it is within the Department of Elevator Inspectors, can afford one group to remake their appropriation to gain advantage. Much like the men of the motor pool, who struggle “within the confines of their position to find and reaffirm their voices… (Liggins 362),” Lila Mae Watson finds herself in a position where she is able to manipulate the imbalance of power to her advantage. After the high-profile near-disaster at the Fanny Briggs building, Lila Mae takes an opportunity to lay low and begin her own investigation into the supposed accident. While trying to concoct a plan to gain access to the annual Department banquet, the Funicular Follies, Lila Mae is mistaken for the hotel’s temporary help. Rather than correct this simple misunderstanding, Lila Mae quietly dons a uniform and begins serving her fellow inspectors without fear of being recognized, for as she thinks to herself when noticing her out-of-place shoes, “They won’t be looking at [my] shoes. They won’t be looking at me at all.” Instead, she notes, “They see colored skin and a servant’s uniform (153).”
Lila Mae, incognito among the waitstaff, is able to glean a measure of satisfaction as she watches Natchez’s surprise, though she is subject to a far more sobering performance in the form of Mr. Gizzard and Hambone: two fellow inspectors dressed in comically-poor attire with “faces…smeared black with burnt cork, and white greasepaint circles [around] their mouths in ridiculous lips (154).” The audience roars with laughter at the stereotypical antics of the two performers in blackface, giving a standing ovation to an act which features jokes depicting blacks as nothing more than liars, thieves, and dunces. Lila Mae and the waitstaff, however, are silent about what they witness. Lila Mae, at first, “tricks herself” into believing she says nothing because she knows none of the women, because she has said nothing to them all night; she comes to the sobering realization, however, that they “are all silent for the same reason: because this is the world they have been born into, and there is no changing that (157).” Lila Mae reflects on this, remembering her father’s attempt to secure entrance to the Institute for Vertical Transport, where instead he was met with a short, “We don’t accept colored gentlemen,” even those with a degree in engineering from the colored college downstate (160-61). Much like her father, Lila Mae realizes, she and the rest of the help at the Funicular Follies are separated from opportunities by an unequal distribution of power. But unlike her father, who is relegated into obscure menial labor because of his color, Lila Mae uses the invisibility her skin grants her to turn the tables of her power equations.
“‘I know what you did,’ she tells Pompey. ‘I know what you did to the Fanny Briggs stack (190).’” Lila Mae Watson suspects Pompey, the only other black elevator inspector in the Department, of sabotaging the elevator at the Fanny Briggs building. She drives to Pompey’s home (which, she is surprised to learn, is only two blocks away from her own apartment) and accuses him of tampering with the elevator she last inspected. Pompey’s neighborhood catches her off guard; its “ambient cheer” and “currency of smiles,” —its community feel—is nothing like the anonymity she possesses on her own street. Pompey’s neighborhood is friendly and inviting, even reminiscent of her childhood, Lila Mae thinks. But these thoughts are fleeting, and Lila Mae soon attacks Pompey on his front stoop, accusing him of a crime and threatening his job by alluding to a number of governing organizations comprised of official-sounding acronyms. Lila Mae fails to understand she suspects Pompey for the wrong reasons. His “appallingly obsequious nature” is, of course, what Lila Mae envisions when she accuses him; “You’d go to jail to protect them, after all they’ve done to you (25, 193)?” But what Lila Mae doesn’t recognize, is her inability to rise above such behavior herself when she says to Pompey, “I’m through kidding with you people (193).” In this moment Lila Mae separates herself from Pompey (and all black people, truly) when she considers herself different. Specifically, “you people” is a phrase bordering on racism. With this, Lila Mae sees Pompey just as the other inspectors in the Department do, just as Johnny Shush does; in Pompey’s words, like he’s “some dumb nigger (193).” Pompey explains to Lila Mae that he’s done what he’s done because he’s had no other choice, and resents her for her haughty attitude—they way she carries herself—that she’s had it easy in the Department because of him. “Because of what I did for you,” Pompey tells her (195).
The True Meaning of “Elevation.”
When Lila Mae Watson considers how she’s judged Pompey, she thinks back to her discovering of Fulton’s secret: James Fulton, founder of Intuitionism, was a black man. That in order to be accepted in his profession—by society, even—he had to hide such a fact. Just like the waitstaff at the Funicular Follies quietly going about their business in the kitchen, like Pompey working for Johnny Shush to support his two children, Fulton hides his true self—he passes for white—in order to make a place for himself; Fulton is born into a world where his skin color leaves him powerless, and he does what he believes necessary to (as the men in the motor pool do) “make it [his] own” (18). For James Fulton, this is elevation.
Fulton single-handedly crafts what, for Intuitionists, is the most-important text in history. Fulton writes of “another world beyond this one,” though he isn’t imagining physical verticality; rather, socioracial uplift. Fulton’s dream is to elevate his true race to a status equal to that of the white establishment. Fulton’s multi-volume text, Theoretical Elevators, seeks to provide his race what it has been lacking in an “upward vision (Liggins 366).” Theoretical Elevators finds a welcoming and eager audience in the world of vertical transport. His theories are readily accepted among the educated and prominent; not since Otis has a single person made such an impact in the world of vertical transit. The dominant culture is accepting and encouraging of what Fulton promotes—though Fulton is passing as white (it’s possible his ideas would have been rejected has his skin been too many shades darker)—as Cornel West suggests: “it is undeniable that U.S. mass culture is disproportionately influence by black people (394).” While elevators may not be widely considered “U.S. mass culture,” Whitehead writes a world where they are just so; billboards dedicated to their proliferation, an industry magazine, Lift, industrial espionage and corporate rivalries (particularly United and Arbo), and above all, most-influenced by a (passing) black man, James Fulton. This is a stunning reversal of power relations from the world the reader first encounters.
Arrival?
At the novel’s close, Lila Mae Watson is in sole possession of Fulton’s “black box,” his blueprint for “the second elevation,” or the racial uplift black society is so desperately lacking. “The black box, we imagine, will deliver people of color from all…confinements, and open to them a literal kingdom of the heavens that will eradicate rather than merely compensate for the injustices of the world as they and we have know it, utterly transforming the landscape of race and place (Bérubé 168-69).” Lila Mae sends incomplete plans to both major elevator companies and begins work on the third volume of Fulton’s Theoretical Elevators, awaiting the time to reveal the code and unleash the perfect elevator upon the world. She (for that word is truly important here) has triumphed in a man’s world. All the clever knots have come undone and Lila Mae Watson’s pressing. But where does this leave the reader? Saundra Liggins writes, “There are no clear conclusions at the end of Whitehead’s novel (367),” though there is room for disagreement. It is fairly evident in Whitehead’s finale that Lila Mae, once invisible even to her coworkers, has skirted the edges of a number of established powers—the predominately white Department of Elevator Inspectors (and later a boisterous audience comprised of the same), the reach of mobster Johnny Shush, and a “white” James Fulton—only to emerge empowered. The invisibility given to Lila Mae by her skin color allows her to foray deeper and deeper into her own investigation, leading her closer to Fulton’s true secret of elevation and an improbable (though thoroughly foreshadowed) reversal of power. Yes, Lila Mae Watson truly is the one.
I don’t want to be too flippant here, but The Intuitionist reduces to morality tale; a rags-to-riches story of the cultural influence and socioracial mobility of African-Americans in contemporary literature. Seemingly, the best possible scenario for any person disregarded by an institution would be to someday rise up and overcome, and The Intuitionist’s Lila Mae Watson does just so. Lila Mae, like Black Culture in general, takes what little voice she is given and uses it to change not the Establishment (or majority culture), but what defines it. And that little voice carries.
Works Cited
Bérubé, Michael. “Race and Modernity in Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist.” Eds. Peter Freese and Charles B. Harris. The Holodeck in the Garden: Science and Technology in Contemporary American Fiction. Dalkey Archive Press: Bloomington-Normal, 2004.
Liggins, Saundra. “The Urban Gothic Vision of Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist (1999).” African American Review 40.2 (2006): 358-69.
West, Cornel. “Black Culture and Postmodernism.” A Postmodern Reader. Eds. Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon. State University of New York Press: Albany, 1993. (390-97).
Whitehead, Colson. The Intuitionist. Anchor Books: New York, 2000.
