Black Like Me Essay, Research Paper
Black Like Me was first published in November of 1961. It was
originally written as an article describing the rise in suicide
tendency among Southern Negroes. John Howard Griffin
assumed that “it would be an obscure work, of interest
primarily to sociologists.” Historically, Griffin was the first
white person to experience certain issues known only to black
people. By simply darkening his pigment, he encountered a
complex reality formerly unknown to him or any other white
person. Black Like Me was written as a journal, a portrayal of
Griffin’s life as he experienced it as a black man. It was not
meant to have symbolism or themes, however, it is important
to evaluate the book as a fiction novel. This allows the reader
to determine its symbolism and recognize its themes. It was
assumed that if this book was intended to be read as a story,
isolation would be the symbolic theme. In the following quote,
Griffin has completed the process of darkening his skin and
sees himself in the mirror for the first time as a black man.
“The transformation was total and shocking. I had expected to
see myself disguised, but this was something else. I was
imprisoned in the flesh of an utter stranger, an unsympathetic
one with whom I felt no kinship. All traces of the John Griffin I
had been were wiped from existence. Even the senses
underwent a change so profound it filled me with distress. I
looked into the mirror and saw nothing of the white John
Griffin’s past.” (pgs.15-16) The theme of isolation is first
discovered in this quote. Griffin feels imprisoned in a body
other than his own. He does not like the person he sees
before him and feels that the figure he sees in the mirror has
no relationship with the mind and soul inside. The next quote
describes the separation Griffin feels from his own body. He
feels that he is sharing his body with a stranger, someone he
feels no connection with. “The completeness of this
transformation appalled me. It was unlike anything I had
imagined. I became two men, the observing one and the one
who panicked, who felt Negroid even to the depths of my
entrails. I felt the beginnings of great loneliness, not because I
was a Negro but because the man I had been, the self I knew,
was hidden in the flesh of another.” (pg. 16) Not only does
Griffin feel isolated from his black body, but when he returns
to his original skin tone, he feels separated from that body
and life also. After he had experienced such prejudice and
bigotry, he found it hard to return to his original self. “I felt
strangely sad to leave the world of the Negro after having
shared it so long–almost as though I were fleeing my share of
his pain and heartache.” (pg. 143) In the next quote, Griffin
asks how people can be so cruel when there are so many
things to love and care about in the world. “I felt their arms
around my neck, their hugs and the marvelous jubilation of
reunion. And in the midst of it, the picture of the prejudice and
bigotry from which I had just come flashed into my mind, and I
heard myself mutter: ‘My God, how can men do it when there
are things like this in the world?’ ” (pg.144) Griffin was a white
man with a good job, a family, and a home. Nevertheless, he
still felt isolated after his experience as a black man and in
some ways he still felt connected to the black John Griffin. He
had experienced something never before experienced by any
white person. It was something he could only share with
himself. Only he knew what it was like “when a so-called
first-class citizen is cast on to the junk heap of second-class
citizenship.”
Bibliography
black like me