Percival Everett
James by Percival Everett, loosely based on Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, flips Twain’s novel by unfolding the narrative in the first-person voice of Jim, the runaway slave. Everett adheres broadly to the outlines of Twain’s novel with Jim and Huck on the run together. Jim runs away when he learns he is to be sold to a man in New Orleans and will be separated from his wife and daughter. Huck fakes his own death to escape from his abusive father. The two overcome obstacles, are separated and reunited on several occasions, barely survive drowning in the mighty Mississippi, and escape hair-raising encounters with white men who are chasing them. But this is more than just a retelling of Huckleberry Finn. Everett weaves the concept of oral and physical performance throughout his novel to interrogate the social construction of race and to show the humanity and intelligence of James and the other slaves.
James is well-read; articulate; engages in imaginary debates with Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire about the nature of human rights and slavery; and writes notes on his experiences. He is also a consummate performer. He articulates a public diction that makes him sound gullible, foolish, and ignorant to pacify the white people he encounters. He calls it a “slave filter” and he teaches enslaved children to translate their private speech into “slave” talk. This is akin to teaching them a second language. And it is no exercise in futility. As he impresses upon the children, this is a matter of survival. In effect, the slaves are bilingual. They perform in the manner white people expect of slaves in order to mitigate the threat whites would feel if they discover their slaves can articulate their thoughts clearly, can read, write, and think for themselves.
James’ diction operates on two levels: his private voice in which he is articulate, circumspect, and literate. This voice appears only when he speaks to other slaves or records his thoughts. And his public voice which appears when he speaks to white people to reinforce their preconceived notions of slaves. In addition to a private and public language, James engages in private and public performance. In public, he shuffles his feet, hobbles along, keeps his head bowed, and won’t look white people in the eye. In private, he is resourceful, athletic, and can move swiftly in land or water.
The concept of performance is treated with a heavy dose of irony when James is purchased to sing in a minstrel show. With the exception of one man, the performers are all white males. They cover their faces with black boot polish to look black. The one exception is a black man whose skin is light enough to pass as white. James’ face is smothered with black polish to look blacker, but white is painted around his eyes and mouth to make him look like a white man with black face. In effect, a group of mostly white men put on a performance pretending to be slaves by singing and dancing and holding themselves up for ridicule by the white audience. Although the white audience and white minstrels don’t know it, theirs is a performance of a performance that slaves adopt to dupe whites. The irony and absurdity of the situation is not lost on James or the reader.
Percival Everett’s brilliant re-imagining of Twain’s classic novel honors its predecessor while interrogating the social construction of race through the performance and voice of an eloquent and unforgettable James. An impressive achievement.