Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

Morrison writes that the metaphorical uses of racism are integral parts of both the national literature and character, even today. In addition to being used metaphorically, Africanism is still used as part of an ideology that rationalizes white power through black inferiority. While it is often said that the United States has made decisions about morality without referring to its black population, in reality, the black population has been at the front and center of many debates, from constitutional rights to matters of justice. The idea of Africanism is a vital part of the way whites have learned to define themselves. As Morrison writes, “Africanism is inextricable from the definition of Americanness” (65).

Literature has offered a commentary on the biological and ideological uses of Africanism. Literature mutates the conventions of Africanism: Like the way in which applying blackface allowed white performers to delve into the taboo, white writers used Africanism to express the forbidden.

White writers’ responses to the Africanist presence often subvert the surface meanings of their texts by providing paradoxes and disruptions. Morrison cites many ways in which writers use rhetorical devices to enforce racism, such as the critic Jim Snead writing about Faulkner.

Morrison discusses other rhetorical devices that support racism. For example, the “economy of stereotype” (67) allows the writer to quickly present a character without much narrative or description. Other rhetorical devices include metonymic displacement (allowing blackness to replace character); metaphysical condensation (making individuals into animals to prevent true communication); fetishization (such as the fetishization of black and white blood); dehistoricizing allegory (implying that differences are so vast and extend across time); and disjointed or repetitive language.

Morrison considers Hemingway’s work. She writes that he is far less self-conscious about his use of African Americans than Poe was. In To Have and Have Not, a black, nameless character is hired by the protagonist, Harry Morgan, to work on his boat. Harry, in the narrator’s voice, refers to this man as a “nigger” (70). However, in a later section of the boat, Harry refers to this other man as “Wesley” in dialogue while the narrator still refers to the man as a “nigger.” This man is deprived of characterization and his color is used as a shorthand for character, while he speaks little and uses speech only that serves Harry. The lack of characterization of the black man has some awkward effects, as Harry must report that the black man, who is steering the ship, has seen fish before he himself sees them. Hemingway uses this construction rather than having the black man speak for himself. Morrison writes that if this man spoke, it would have taken away from the virility of Harry, who defines himself against this servile black character.

Later, when both Harry and the black man are shot, Wesley (the black man) speaks about his pain, appearing weak, while Harry remains silent about his own pain. Harry expresses sympathy for Wesley, referring to him by name, and only later reverts to calling him a “nigger” again. While Wesley’s speech is usually limited to groans, at one point he criticizes Harry and calls him inhuman, a common complaint of the black characters in Hemingway’s fiction.

At the end of the novel, Harry’s wife, Marie, rues her husband’s death. She describes him in terms that assert his virility while criticizing Cubans, who, she says, have too many blacks. She describes an event in the past when a black man (Hemingway distinguishes between white and black Cubans and refers only to whites as Cubans) said something to Marie, and Harry tossed the man’s hat in the street. She says she then dyed her hair blonde. The black man encapsulates the idea of violence and sexuality until Harry asserts his superiority in both regards. Marie dyes her hair, making herself whiter and more sexually appealing. In this book, Africanism is used to stand for a character.

Morrison looks at the way Hemingway’s characters are often enthralled to nurses, women who can help them without making them voice their needs. Some of these women are nurses, while others are nurse figures—thoughtful, dutiful women. Morrison writes that black men also serve this function in Hemingway’s fiction, including men who carry game for white men in Africa or men who serve on boats. These men, like Wesley, are often in the position of criticizing and challenging their white masters. For example, in the story “The Battler,” Bugs, a black man, takes care of the former boxer, Ad, but he is also a sadist who bashes his white master. Therefore, these characters at times provide comfort to white masters but also challenge their self-identity. They are, like the wife in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” both nurses and destroyers. They are like nurses and sharks—similar to the way Harry describes black lovers as a “nurse shark” (85) in To Have and Have Not. He describes black women in terms that make them seem not human and predatory.

In The Garden of Eden, Hemingway writes about a white woman named Catherine who desires to make herself as dark as possible through tanning. To her, darkness is something that can be appropriated and which can remove someone from others as well as heighten her sexuality. However, she also bleaches her hair, becoming both white and dark, both male and female. She then imposes her duality onto her husband, David, to emphasize the sibling relationship that further animates their sexual excitement. Catherine’s more interesting Africanist story replaces David’s attempt to write a story that portrays Africa as Edenic.

Morrison writes that it is not her concern to evaluate the worth of literature such as that of Hemingway but instead to mine it for the Africanist presence it contains. She writes that it’s limiting when critics do not see the deeper meanings in such literature, which she refers to as “disrupting darkness” (91).