Questions?
Minstrel Caricatures
Jupiter as a Caricature
Does Jupiter match any of the minstrel stereotypes? Which ones? What’s the evidence?
Uncle Tom. Protective, caring, gentle, actively facilitates his relationship to Legrand even though that relationship is detrimental to Jupiter.
Buck. Physically strong, and sometimes menacing as when Jupiter wanted to beat Legrand with a stick
Mammy. Sometimes “sasses” back to Legrand.
Zip coon. Poor diction, attempts at dignified speech end up being silly.
What’s the Problem?
The immediate problem is that Jupiter is a shallow, racist, caricature. Poe doesn’t challenge racist stereotypes or use the character for more meaningful purposes.
But the deeper problem in Poe’s time and particularly with minstrelsy generally is that the stereotypes are ones audiences would have no basis for challenging from personal experience, and in fact are ones that seem plausible based on “common knowledge.” So these entertainments reinforce and spread stereotypes in a very pernicious way.
And the same thing happens today. Look at “common knowledge” stereotypes of Africa in the Broadway show “The Book of Mormon”: warlords, AIDS, sexual superstitions, etc., and western audiences mostly have only news reports about Africa, which play up the violence, sex, etc., to judge those stereotypes against.
Next Essay
How could/should modern readers react to the portrayal of race in “The Gold Bug”?
Take this broadly. Reactions to the story per se can be a starting point, but you are welcome to extend them to modern connections, e.g., how the things you react to in the story are better / worse / the same today, etc.
Don’t be shy about questioning and thinking critically about your own or others’ ideas. If an idea makes you uncomfortable, or seems incomplete, etc., write about why and what’s missing (or talk about it in conversations).
Next
Developing, stating, and motivating theses.
Read
- INTD 106’s unit on “The Thesis Statement” (in Module 5)
- They Say, I Say chapter 7