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

In James Weldon Johnson’s novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, it is told from the first person point of view of the anonymous narrator. The narrator with an African American mother and a white American father, has to overcome many racial obstacles because he does not know which race side he wants to choose. He goes back and forth between the races all while going from the South and moving North, and witnessing events that persuade him in his choice. Johnson’s dialect throughout the novel establishes the main theme and the central conflict of racial identity, as well as art and culture, racism, and coming of age. Throughout Johnson’s novel, he establishes the main theme of racial identity because the narrator does not know which

To the narrator, “music offer[ed] a means of both social and economic survival.”(Payne 3). After one of his “early [piano] recitals,” his father sent him his own piano to have, the narrators gift of being able to play the piano gives him a way to “support himself during a portion of his adult life.”(Payne 3), after his mother's death and no help from his father, which makes his decision “to attend Atlanta University.”(Payne 3). The narrator becomes very familiar with ragtime when he is hired by a patron to “accompany him to Europe, [and] … perform ragtime for the patron whenever he demanded.”(Barnhart 1). Once he returned from Europe, he “intend[ed] to live as a black man…,”(Pisiak 1). All of the “doors that open for the narrator,”(Japtok 6), are from “his millionaire friend [patron]”(Japtok 6). Johnsons use of both ragtime and classical music “embody distinct modes of time-consciousness…”(Barnhart 1). The classical music in the novel represents “a conception of time that revolves around necessity, calculability, and the expected.”(Barnhart 1). The influence that ragtime had on the narrator was “the music… inspire[d] him…”(Barnhart 5)During his journey through life, he explores the arts of both races. As he grows and matures, he “becomes… reconciled to [and] proud of his [black] race.”(Payne 3). Johnson’s purpose for making art and culture a theme of his novel was to

The narrator's father left while he was still a young child and never really had much to do with the narrator nor his mother, except for him visiting “in the evening, apparently under cover of darkness.”(Fleming 4), because he did not want to be judged for being with a “black” woman and having a mixed child. Once the narrator learns at school that he is not “white” but rather “he is coloured,”(Japtok 1), he “switches from [race to race] in the years to follow”(Japtok 1). Most of society during this time fought for racial equality because truly the African Americans were treated more poorly than the white Americans. The narrator did not quite see things as if they were mistreated but instead he saw it as how different “blacks” are from “whites” and how some “blacks” are different than other