The story that I want to discuss is "The City of Refuge" by Rudolph Fisher. I often feel confused about why these stories are considered African-American humor. "The City of Refuge" never really made me laugh, or amused. I would say that it made me kind of angry the way that Mouse Uggam took advantage of Gillis. He had Gillis run his drug business by convincing him he was just selling French medicine. Gillis is ignorant of everything going on, and ends up taking the fall for the drugs at the end. I'm not really sure if the story is supposed to be amusing or humorous because I found it more sad. However, there is a lot of incongruity in the story. Almost all the incongruity is based off of the King Solomon Gillis' lack of intelligence. One would expect him to easily figure out he's being set up, but he has no idea. Another example of incongruity is Gillis' amazement with Harlem. He feels it's the best place on Earth, the 'city of refuge', but really it is not a place to live.
Though I felt like there are incongruous parts in this reading and in other Hokum readings, I definitely don't consider it 'funny.' This is probably due to a few reasons. First is that most of these stories are from the early to mid 1900's. The dated time period makes it very hard to relate to any of these stories. Another reason is that I am a 19 year old white male. I've gone through over 13 years of schooling teaching me about the horrors of slavery and injustices against African-Americans. When reading many of these stories that appear to encourage certain stereotypes about African-Americans, I don't chuckle or smile. Usually I just find it pretty racist because of today's culture.
I would have to agree that this is one of our more difficult reads so far this year. All of the stories that use a large amount of slang I have had to read multiple times. Because of this, I find myself focusing more on getting the words right than what they actually mean, which obviously hinders my understanding. But, I too usually end the story feeling very intrigued. I believe that one of the main reasons for this is that the culture that is being referenced is one that I have no knowledge of. No amount of schooling in the world would allow me to submerge myself enough in the culture of this time period to truly understand it. It is this unattainable perspective and constant yearning for understanding that I believe makes reading about other cultures and time periods so intriguing.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think the story and its content is what is supposed to be humorous, but rather the amusement comes from the central incongruities that the author uses to portray such a socially and humanly difficult subject in an emotionally manageable way. What I found humorous was the incongruity of the main character’s name, King Solomon Gillis; he is presented as rather naïve, unintelligent, and ignorant, but his name is a biblical allusion to the wise King Solomon of the Old Testament. A second, previously stated incongruity is the setting of the story in which Harlem is described as “…a land of plenty” (116). A third incongruity deals with the relationship between King Solomon and Mouse Uggam; Although seen as an unintelligent and ignorant fellow, King Solomon is the one that recognizes Uggam right away as the same Mouse Uggam from back home; Uggam never recognizes King Solomon, and therefore feels no shame in abusing their relationship. But it is not this abuse of their relationship that is funny; letting someone else take the fall for one’s illegal drug dealing scheme is not funny; and the treatment of newcomers to Harlem is not funny because racism and social inequality are not funny. The humor is simply used as a release valve to relieve the tension and emotion that runs high when reading literature on this subject. The “humor” is not meant to make you laugh at social inequality, but is just supposed to let you breathe.
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