41 pages • 1 hour read
George SchuylerBlack No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1931A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Mutability of Human Nature
Just as the skin color of human beings is changeable, as evidenced by the success of Dr. Crookman’s Black-No-More treatment, so is the human heart and the human capacity for reason. This mutability over time is a prominent theme of the novel; at times, the changeable nature of people can work positively, and other times, it has a negative impact on individuals and society.
Helen’s change of heart is an example of the potential for the mutability of human nature to be positive. At the start of the novel, Helen is coldly hostile and dismissive of black people, specifically Max; later descriptions reveal that Helen is a product of her home environment, where her parents, Rev. Givens and Mrs. Givens, cultivated her most superficial qualities and indulged her reluctance to become educated. When Matthew reveals to Helen that he is the reason their baby is born with darker skin than she expected, Helen’s reaction is positive; she has just learned that she herself is of mixed blood, so she accepts Matthew’s confession, and their baby boy, immediately and with some semblance of tenderness.
The reaction of the residents of Happy Hill, Mississippi to the appearance of Dr. Buggerie and Snobbcraft, on the other hand, is an example of the potential for human mutability to go terribly wrong. When Dr. Buggerie and Snobbcraft remove the blacking from their faces and reveal themselves to be ordinary white men, they assuage the bloodthirsty crowd who mistook them for black men, but only temporarily; as soon as the newspapers show them to be who they are, the crowd’s bloodlust rekindles, and they torture the two men, burning them to death for their mixed ancestry. In this situation, partial blackness is more than enough to warrant such punishment, whereas only moments before, Snobbcraft and Dr. Buggerie were white enough to survive.
Hypocrisy, Greed, and Other Human Frailties
This novel is, on some levels, a cautionary tale, as Schuyler’s many satirical elements mock human frailties like hypocrisy and greed; in other ways, however, the satirical renditions of characters do not result badly, revealing a cynicism in the writer and perhaps, a deterministic attitude toward one’s lot in life. Only one or two characters can be perceived as entirely innocent and good; every major character is flawed, except for perhaps young Matthew Crookman Fisher, born to Helen and Matthew under shocking circumstances, and the nameless individuals who exist as a collective, representing all black persons who are simply trying to survive life in Schuyler’s America.
Perhaps the most striking examples of hypocrisy in the novel are observable in the characters who claim affinity with religious groups. These individuals, like Rev. Givens and his wife, are the most dishonest of all; they respect no one, stealing from the groups to which they belong and spreading a gospel of hatred when their roles require compassion and community-minded generosity of spirit. To some, their punishment is light; the promise of the presidency evaporates as they discover they are made of genetic material they claim to despise, but they live peacefully after the commotion settles.
Schuyler explores greed with his presentation of the dark side of capitalism; both Dr. Crookman’s success with the Black-No-More treatment and Matthew’s success as an organizer who incites violence to control others reveal that capitalism can indeed go too far, destroying the American dream for many rather than promote it. No real punishment is meted to either of these characters, however, suggesting that greed is perhaps an essential facet of survival. Other frailties like moral weakness and excessive pride are also observable in characters like Snobbcraft; his racially inspired arrogance and lofty political ambitions are certainly violently punished by the end of the novel, the virulence of the lynch mob suitably matching the depth of Snobbcraft’s hatred.
Racism, Hatred, and Fear
Schuyler presents the social problems of discrimination and bias in a matter-of-fact and knowing tone, exploring the themes of racism, hatred, and fear with a cold and fact-driven eye. The instant success of Black-No-More is evidence of the grim state of American race relations; black culture all but disappears as soon as an escape route appears, indicating that most black people in the novel, given the opportunity, would choose not to be black if they could. Even the Race Men, whose role is to support and celebrate black culture, are hypocrites who do not live by the proud messages they preach; Schuyler does not express if this hypocrisy is the result of internalized racism or other, less sympathetic motivations, but the picture he paints of black self-advocacy is a dark one, no matter the reasons explaining it.
Matthew’s most clever and successful strategy as an organizer for the Knights of Nordica involves harnessing the power behind hatred and prejudice. He employs this strategy unemotionally, as if the pain and suffering implied by his words is irrelevant. Matthew’s lack of emotion makes for an interesting interpretation of the notion of post-racial America; perhaps, post-racial means acceptance, or a situation where most people understand that there is no point in fretting about social issues that are simply irresolvable. The bleakness of Schuyler’s discussions of these themes are all the more cynical for the absence of emotion in his writing.
