Of James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man

In “A Curious Study”: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Pedagogy, and the Post-Plantation Imagination”’ Lisa Hinrichsen explores two interconnected themes in James Weldon Johnson’s historic novel. Hinrichsen argues that Johnson’s novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, an emphasis is placed on narratives that reflect plantation ideas and are, within the text, linked to classroom spaces. In addition, she argues that pedagogy and aesthetic appreciation affect the culture of the text’s society, resulting in the creation of objectification and the enforcement of knowledge and power’s inseparability in the racially divided society (176). To support her argument, Hinrichsen points to moments in which narratives about being, having, and

She assigns the novel’s protagonist and narrator’s, the Ex-Colored Man, formal education experience with the narrative of knowing. In a school setting, the Ex-Colored Man learns that he is not a white children, but instead is of some African American descent. Hinrichsen argues that when this incident occurs, “plantation-era modes of distinction and classification” are used when the narrator is referred to as “a nigger” (179). According to the article, the narrators urges to “know” led him to pursue formal education and thus to experience that moment within the text (Hinrichsen 176). However, this argument fails to address that the author was only a child when this moment occurred. He did not have the power to refuse going to school, instead it was a decision that the adults in his life made. Therefore, it is unfair to say that is was the narrator’s desire to “know” that led him to this predicament, and thus created the narrative for knowing within the text. Yet, as the Ex-Colored Man matures, there are instances that are the result of his own

According to Hinrichsen, when the narrator spends time with a wealthy white millionaire who is pedagogic as he “provides a type of instruction in cosmopolitan culture and white upper-class ways” (183). As a result of these lessons, which include taking the narrator to Paris and buying him high quality clothes, the Ex-Colored Man saw himself as being an equal to the millionaire (Hinrichsen 183). However, similar to the narrator’s formal education experience, his time with the narrator is still plagued by plantation language and ideas. Hinrichsen points to the millionaire’s frequent use of “my boy” and his frequent “loaning” of the Ex-Colored Man to his friends as examples of “mastery and ownership” (182). Thus, unlike her first supporting point, Hinrichsen illustrates how the narrative of being was created by the narrator. In addition, she address the planation logic and forms of education that are present within it. However, this point is most effective in demonstrating how this affects the narrator’s view and function within the society of the