I don’t really see Macon as a hero, because none of his intentional actions were heroic - sure, he died for his cause, but he sure didn’t want to. The things he did on purpose, starting the day of apology, robbing people, were not heroic at all and had serious repercussions, often ending in injury, chaos, and death. And when it came right down to it, he wasn’t able to stand up for what he believed in, and I think his cowardice in the last chapter is enough to put any reader off. He could be seen as heroic at the beginning of the novel for robbing white people, but I see that as more of an outlet for his destructive behavior, and not really an effective method for implementing the change he was supposedly working for.
I don’t want to make it seem like I’m painting a one sided picture, because I liked Macon (or was at least intrigued by him) at the beginning of the novel. Sure, the things he did were kind of problematic at times, but I think Mansbach was showing us a person who genuinely did care, but maybe didn’t go about it the best of ways all the time. However, I feel like as one gets further and further into the novel, you see the eventual disintegration of Macon’s ability to follow his moral compass driven by his cowardice.
I guess what genuinely enrages me the most about Macon and his actions in the last chapter is the overall hypocrisy of it all -- he spent about 200 pages demonstrating how “down” and “woke” he was, and yet when any of that really mattered, he couldn’t stand up for what he believed in. It just gave me an extreme amount of dissatisfaction and sense of anticlimactic-ness, in the midst of a whole bunch of confusion over what exactly happened in the last pages of the book. Overall, while I think Angry Black White Boy was an interesting novel to talk about, but I don’t really see Macon’s actions as heroic in any sense of the word.
the last part of the book was definitely one of the most confusing parts for trying to understand Macon's character. On one hand, he was kind of heroic by turning the gun on Burleigh. But he also punched leo, and seemed really willing to transform himself into a white supremacist. the very last part is even more confusing, it's hard to tell whether he was actually dying for a cause, or if he was just dying for no real reason.
ReplyDeleteThe really weird part was that Macon was sort of killed for the cause. He was so entrenched in it that when he tried to leave, he was killed because he wasn't quite white anymore in the eyes of the white supremacists. He didn't want to die, but he sort of was a martyr.
DeleteI feel like we kind of get a glimpse of Macon's anti-heroism, or at the least, his hypocrisy when during the riots, the black men ask for his wallet and he refuses to give it to them. That moment shows that Macon really isn't down with his cause, especially when it's time for him to own up to his privilege.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opening paragraph completely. The fact that Macon displays cowardice in the last chapter takes away any notion that he is or ever was a hero. Like you said, he is very destructive and not so much actually standing up for what he believed in.
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly a curious dynamic at the end of this novel: most readers have seen Macon as a problematic hero at best for much of the novel, but maybe he is starting to gain a certain degree of credibility (or very provisional benefit of the doubt, as Nique puts it). And then once the author is able to bring some readers around, he has his own hero go back on everything he's stood for--a "traitor" of the sort we haven't seen all semester. The author forces the reader to be "disappointed" in a character they haven't been fully behind for the whole novel, but that disappointment can have the odd effect of making us *want* him to have this integrity that we'd been skeptical of all along.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. Macon rubbed me the wrong way with his robberies, as I wasn't sure whether or not I could support a hero committing such crimes, but I was willing to see where he could grow as a hero. However, by the end of the novel, he hasn't really grown at all - if anything he's only shown that he is a hypocrite by running away. The more the novel went on, the less I liked Macon by a hero, and him dying as a martyr in the end was not the way he wanted to go.
ReplyDeleteThe confusion stirred up by the ending of the novel is very important in determining how we choose to view Macon throughout the course of his journey. When Macon is finally presented with a chance to permanently prove that he is committed to the cause, he isn't able to follow through and instead rejects his identity, essentially retreating to whiteness. This is such a confusing scene because up to this point Macon had already passed a series of tests to validate his legitimacy, such as not taking the $600,000 per year job. In the end, however, it is stated that Macon is aligned with his ancestors, causing us to question whether Macon's legitimacy was rightfully in question or he simply had a moment where he faltered at the end.
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