40 pages • 1 hour read
Victor LavalleThe Ballad of Black Tom
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A 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 Danger of Crossing Segregation Lines
Tommy Tester faces danger any time he leaves Harlem and crosses into a white section of the city. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, urban planning in most major American cities was based on segregation. In the South Jim Crow, laws formalized segregation, and in the North, where such laws did not formally exist, redlining ensured that blacks and whites would live in different parts of the city. On their first meeting, Ma Att cautions Tommy not to be in Queens after sundown. This is a reference to “sundown towns,” all-white neighborhoods that enforced segregation through discriminatory laws, violence, or intimidation. The police harass Tommy for being in Flatbush during the day, but white train passengers question him and white teens chase him when he goes there at night. This shows that even if the police are not present to enforce such laws, or if such laws do not formally exist, the racist white population informally enforces them.
Border crossing of whites into black areas is undesirable, too, but the individuals who do so do not face immediate danger. Robert Suydam’s frequenting Red Hook and inviting a “swarthy army” (89) into his home so alarms his family that they doubt his sanity. When Suydam explains this to Tommy, Tommy laughs and says, “Talking to a Negro on the street won’t help you look sane” (49). Malone also crosses racial borders. Malone’s fellow officers see him as odd for enjoying his beat in Red Hook, a place where most white officers enter only when necessary. Again, though society frowns upon whites entering non-white districts, the only danger they face is social isolation from other whites who find such behavior suspicious. The reason for the difference is that police protect the whites, but not people of color. This is why when Malone claims that Tommy kidnapped a white woman and took her to Red Hook, the police mobilize an entire army.
In the end, Tommy’s predilection for border crossing proves his undoing. When Black Tom sits down with Buckeye at the end of the story, he wonders why he was so eager to travel to the white parts of town, only for whites to treat him like a monster and a dog (147). LaValle is presenting a critical dilemma in the overall message of the plot: should Tommy, as a Black man, be content to stay in Harlem? Black Tom takes part of the blame for his father’s death, saying that his frequenting white neighborhoods put his father at risk. If Robert Suydam had stayed in Flatbush, and Tommy had stayed in Harlem, none of the calamities in the plot would have happened. On the surface, it may seem like LaValle is promoting segregation, but these ideas are a critique of the racist society that makes integration and border crossing dangerous in the first place.
Realism Versus the Supernatural
As a work of fantasy, The Ballad of Black Tom treats its themes of racism, magic, and the quest for power through realistic events as well as supernatural ones. The power of the narrative lies in the fact that the context or world of the story is historically realistic: the Harlem Renaissance, New York City, 1924. The neighborhoods, characters, and social dynamics are all presented as they would have been in 1920s America. The first hint that the novella takes place in a different world with different rules is the whiff of smoke that rises from the book when Ma Att takes it from Tommy. It becomes clear that the story takes place in a fantasy world when Robert Suydam takes his mansion into the realm of the Sleeping King while he and Tommy are in his library.
From there, the real world and fantasy world are intermingled, and this deft narrative device allows LaValle to make a powerful social commentary by comparing the evils that exist in the real world, primarily racism and injustice, with the evils that exist on a cosmic scale, represented by Cthulhu. As such, racism and the supernatural go hand in hand. Robert Suydam’s mission is to rule over dark-skinned people whom he considers inferior, and for that, he needs Cthulhu to destroy the current world order. Similarly, Black Tom must harness Cthulhu’s power to realize the supposition: “Imagine a universe in which all the powers of the NYPD could not defeat a single Negro with a razor blade” (139). This hyperbolic scenario—in which the only cure for America’s racism is Cthulhu, bringer of destruction—is part of LaValle’s Afro-Futurist commentary on American society, both in 1924 when the story is set, and in the present day. LaValle presents Cthulhu as the only race-neutral character in the story because he brings destruction to all of humanity equally, without regard for race or social status. There is obvious humor in this idea, but it suggests how ingrained racism is in the fabric of American society.
Tommy’s Archetypes: Coming-of-age and the Hero’s Journey
Tommy Tester’s character arc falls into two main narrative archetypes, each of which highlights different aspects of his personal growth and brings out different themes in the novella. First, one can interpret Tommy’s journey as a coming-of-age story that charts his growth from youth to adulthood. At the beginning of the novella, Tommy is a young man who leads a relatively carefree existence and thinks he understands the world. The grim reality of his father’s death forces him to confront the world on its own terms—racism, indifference, the consequence of his actions—and rethink his values. Otis’s death is the turning point in Tommy’s coming-of-age character arc, taking him from innocence to experience. His father’s death also means that Tommy will need to find a new moral code and a new mentor. Because he has become disillusioned, Tommy chooses the dubious values and mentorship of Robert Suydam. This narrative arc ends with Tommy adopting a new identity altogether, highlighting how extreme his transformation has been. Black Tom represents the antithesis of what Tommy’s values were at the beginning of the narrative. LaValle leaves it to the reader to interpret whether Tommy’s transformation into Black Tom is tragic or heroic.
The second narrative archetype that fits Tommy’s story is the hero’s journey. In this narrative archetype, there is an outward goal for which the protagonist strives, which brings about an inner change. The hero’s journey is defined in phases that take place in either the “regular world” or the “unknown world.” The regular world in which Tommy’s story begins is Harlem. It is his home, the place he knows best. The call to adventure comes when Robert Suydam asks Tommy to raise the Sleeping King and begin a new world (45). Suydam represents the archetypal mentor who will lead Tommy into the unknown world of magic. Importantly, Suydam is also the antagonist, which is a common role for a mentor character to play. It complicates the protagonist’s journey, as he must choose to follow his own path or the mentor’s, which typically offers greater reward. Tommy initially refuses Suydam’s call, telling himself: “Go to Harlem now and never return” (57). After his father’s death, however, Tommy accepts Suydam’s offer, crossing the threshold into the unknown (69).
Tommy’s hero trials happen offscreen, as Part 2 of the novella is from Malone’s point of view. We learn of Tommy’s transformation into Black Tom secondhand (100). Black Tom’s ordeal, death, and rebirth take place when he walks through the portal (142) after killing Suydam and the officers and maiming Malone during the Red Hook raid. Black Tom’s return is represented by meeting with Buckeye at the Victoria Society for the last time (145). Black Tom reenters the regular world, which he has changed forever, symbolized by his ability to jump out the window and disappear (148). The hero’s journey usually shows the hero overcoming evil and changing the world for the better. Structuring the narrative this way, LaValle asks us to consider whether the destruction of the current world, like the Biblical flood, is a chance for rebirth or if Tommy has merely descended into evil.
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