Murdering Heroism - The Advent of Immoral Heroes in Graphic Novels - Essay Example

Murdering Heroism: The Advent of Immoral Heroes In Graphic Novels Providing a realistic portraitf a young boy becoming a drug addict in the inner city f New York, A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich suggests that there are no simple answers to the problems f addiction, poverty, and crime. A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich is told as a series f brief monologues. Presented in a "documentary" style, the novel depicts each f the main characters telling his or her story in turn. This approach serves both to reinforce the novel's graphic realism and to illustrate the complexity f the problems that it addresses. All the novel's characters are distinct individuals, offering their own explanations for Benjie's problems, justifying their own actions, and, at times, impugning the motives f others. By telling her story in this way, Childress is able to strip away her characters' self-deceptions and balance every plausible accusation against an equally plausible countercharge. The novel begins with Benjie's description f his neighborhood. It is a dismal place: Poverty and drugs are everywhere; rampant crime makes young and old alike afraid to leave their homes; most families have been torn apart by divorce or death. It is important for the reader to see Benjie's world through this character's own eyes and to develop sympathy for him at the very beginning f the novel. If Childress did not structure the plot in this way, the reader might be tempted to dismiss Benjie as merely a thief and an addict. As the author suggests, however, Benjie's situation is quite complicated. While he is, admittedly, a drug user, he also has a number f admirable qualities that make him a likable character. (Koppleman 20-25) In the second monologue, Butler Craig indicates that Benjie's use f drugs is more extensive than Benjie has indicated. Butler mentions that Benjie is now "into stealin" and has sold items belonging to his own family in order to support his habit. Though Butler does not condone Benjie's behavior, he does express genuine affection for the boy. One by one, all the characters interpret Benjie's problem in terms f their own relationship to him. Jimmy-Lee Powell reflects upon the close friendship that he and Benjie once had; he regrets that Benjie's use f heroin has caused a gulf to form between them. Benjie's grandmother feels that the use f drugs can only be cured through prayer and intense religious faith. Nigeria Greene, one f Benjie's teachers, sees addiction as resulting from the oppression imposed by whites upon all African Americans. Benjie's mother is saddened by her son's inability to speak openly about his problem; at the same time, she reveals her own inability to convey her true feelings to Benjie. (Killens 20-21) All the characters grasp some part f Benjie's situation, but none f them sees it in its entirety. Childress wants the reader to understand that many factors have caused Benjie to experiment with drugs. While he cannot solve his problems until he admits his own responsibility, the poverty and violence f his neighborhood have also been a major factor in making drugs available to him. When Benjie arrives at school one day obviously under the influence f drugs, Nigeria Greene and Bernard Cohen set aside their personal differences in order to help the boy. They take Benjie to the principal f the school and arrange for Benjie to enter a drug-treatment program. This quick action brings about a temporary improvement in Benjie's situation. Nevertheless, Benjie still finds it difficult to accept Butler as a replacement for his natural father. He regards Butler as a failure and treats him with contempt. The two f them quarrel, and Benjie again begins to think about buying heroin. Finding no money in the house, he pawns Butler's only overcoat and suit. This theft proves to be the last straw for Butler. He leaves Rose and moves into a different apartment in the same building. This decision deprives Benjie f one f the few male role models from whom he could have learned. (Draper 15-18) A short while later, Butler suddenly feels that he is not alone in his new apartment. As he looks around, he catches sight f Benjie stealing yet again. Benjie panics and goes to the rof in an attempt to cross over to the next building. When Benjie slips, Butler grabs him and saves his life. This heroic action and the drug-related death f one f his friends lead Benjie to ask for help in solving his problem. (Bullins 36-40) One night when Benjie cannot sleep and is again tempted to buy heroin, he writes "BUTLER IS MY FATHER" over and over on a sheet f paper, waiting for the craving to pass. He places this paper in the pocket f Butler's new suit but, on the following day, attempts to retrieve it. Though Butler never mentions it, he has taken the paper, and Benjie knows that he must have read it. He realizes that Butler is "cool," the hero for whom he had long been hoping. The novel ends ambiguously, as Butler waits for Benjie to report to his new drug-treatment center. Benjie is late, and the reader is led to wonder whether Benjie has succumbed yet again to the drugs that have almost killed him. Childress herself provides no answers, and readers are left to draw their own conclusions. The Characters Benjie Johnson, though only thirteen, is old before his time. Having witnessed intense poverty, he gives the impression f being cynical, hard-hearted and indifferent. Yet Benjie's attitude serves only to hide more tender feelings. Inside, he longs for someone to look up to and fantasizes about the great things that he would like to do. Benjie's pride is both his undoing and his potential salvation. The pride f showing off has led Benjie to use drugs in the first place. As Nigeria Greene repeatedly says, however, if African Americans developed a genuine pride in the history f their people, they would not allow others to destroy them through addiction. (Brown-Guillory 10-15) Butler Craig proves to be the hero in whom Benjie had long ago ceased to believe. As Butler says late in the novel, true heroes are not the rich; they are ordinary people who work day after day to support their families. Butler is also capable f more traditional forms f heroism: He risks injury in order to save Benjie's life and, in his youth, stood up to a racist when everyone else had been afraid. Benjie's grandmother, Mrs. Ransom Bell, is one f the most complex characters f the novel. At first appearing to be merely a religious zealot, Mrs. Bell gradually reveals herself to be capable f real tenderness. Mrs. Bell had once been a shake dancer (a performer who shook to a musical accompaniment). Though she now condemns her earlier life as immoral, she still takes pride in her skill. In one f the most joyful scenes in the novel, Benjie and Butler persuade Mrs. Bell to show them the dancing for which she had once been famous. (Childress 10-11) Nigeria Greene is a black nationalist who, without any sense f irony, wears tailor-made English suits. He is fervent in his desire to teach seventh-graders the part f their history that is missing from the school's textbooks. Though often self-righteous, Mr. Greene (dubbed "Africa" by his students) has excellent intentions and is the first one who acts to save Benjie from addiction. Bernard Cohen is, on the surface, Nigeria Greene's nemesis. In reality, however, the two teachers are working for the same goals. Mr. Cohen cares about the education f his students and is appalled by the quality f their earlier education. Although he wants his African American students to know their own history, he does not believe that this should be all they learn. He attempts to teach black culture in a larger context, improving the skills that his students will need in order to succeed in the world. (Brown-Guillory 1-7) Mr. Cohen's sincerity is proven by his unwillingness to be transferred to another school even though he could earn more money there. Themes and Meanings While A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich does not glamorize theft or drug use, it does suggest that Benjie's problems are not entirely f his own making. Benjie's addiction has resulted both from his own poor choices and from the limited options that society has offered him. Childress reserves some f the harshest passages f the novel for the social workers who blame everything that Benjie has done on his "environment" and, in so doing, fail to help him. A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich suggests that, while a person's problems may indeed be the result f poverty or injustice, it is up to each individual to take responsibility for his or her own life. The title f the novel reflects Benjie's cynicism and his belief that, in the modern world, heroism is no longer possible. Benjie learns, however, that real heroes are not those who are perfect. The heroes f the modern world are people such as Butler Craig who may be flawed and have troubles f their own. Real heroes are those who are willing to help others even when they themselves have nothing to gain. In many ways, all f the people who surround Benjie share at least some f this heroism. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greene overcome their personal differences in an effort to save Benjie from drugs. Benjie's mother risks her own relationship with Butler Craig because f her devotion to her son. Even Jimmie-Lee Powell and the school's principal would help if only they knew what to do. Nevertheless, Childress does not present these characters as stereotypical heroes. Like Benjie, all the characters have their own individual "addictions": For Butler, it is jazz and his "name-brand bottle that can be tasted now and then"; for Mrs. Bell, it is religion; for Mr. Greene, it is politics. The temptation toward addiction, Childress suggests, is universal. The true hero (or perhaps the true adult) does not, however, permit this temptation to destroy what would otherwise be a productive and meaningful life. Critical Context Alice Childress is a playwright and director as well as a novelist. In 1956, Childress' play Trouble in Mind received an Obie Award as the year's best Off-Broadway production. The author's theatrical experience had an important effect upon A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich. Rather than telling her story through a mixture f narrative and dialogue, Childress relied upon a series f dramatic vignettes to build her novel layer by layer. Each character's point f view serves to change the reader's perspective toward Benjie and his addiction. Like the audience f a play, the readers f this novel see the action not through the eyes f a single individual but through the collective experience f a large number f characters. (Childress 5-6) The graphic realism f A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich surprised many readers when the novel first appeared. Although intended for a teenaged audience, the novel contains obscenities, racial epithets, slang, and explicit references to violence and drug use. Childress' intention was not to shock her readers but to permit them to see the world through Benjie's eyes. While Benjie is only thirteen years old, he lives in constant fear f being murdered, robbed, or raped. He has been exposed to suffering more severe than that known by many adults. It should not be surprising, therefore, that Benjie temporarily succumbs to the troubles that surround him. The challenge facing Benjie is how to escape from a life that seems doomed to failure. The novel's frequent use f dialect (such as "chile" for "child" and "letrit" for "electricity") and slang (including "skag" for "heroin," "cop" for "steal," and "jive" for "phony") places the work in the same general tradition as Mark Twain's The Adventures f Huckleberry Finn (1884) and J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Like those novels, A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich uses nonstandard speech in order to create an atmosphere f realism and to underscore the socioeconomic class f its main characters. The Collection Tells No Lies Despite the lip service that many librarians pay to male teens, how many actually enjoy their presence in the library And how many appreciate, let alone share, their interests From my viewpoint, our collections tell the truth. The average public library has many forms f "trash" literature--westerns, romances, horror, fantasy, and science fiction--all f which appeal to popular tastes and are not generally thought worthy f review. These genres have a place in collections simply because they have an adult readership. Substantial Critical Acclaim The great majority f those who read graphic novels are clearly teenage males. That graphic novels and comics can excite a group not known for being easily smitten with books is a great strength f the genre. That they attract an audience comprised almost solely f young males is, however, practically a curse and leads people to wonder why others--girls and adults--aren't that interested in them. Yet there are more than enough examples f great literature in the comic genre. These books are clearly the equal f works f fantasy and science fiction, which, in turn, can be the equal f any type f literature. There is hardly any fiction writer who can compare with Alan Moore author f the graphic novels From Hell (Kitchen Sink, 1993), The Watchmen (Warner, 1987), and V for Vendetta (Warner, 1990). Art Spiegelman received a Guggenheim fellowship as well as a nomination for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Maus (Pantheon, 1986). Neil Gaiman won the FantasyCon's Howard Philips Lovecraft trophy for Best Short Story--only to have convention officials rewrite the rules so that no "comic book" could ever again be nominated for the award. Regardless f acclaim, it's not unusual for librarians to disdain graphic novels. Neither has it been unusual in my experience for them to be judged by harsher standards than other types f literature. Is it right for a librarian to reconsider adding a graphic novel to a collection after glimpsing an illustration f a violent or sexual act Would he or she do the same after reading a violent or sexual passage in a work f fiction Works Cited Brown-Guillory, Elizabeth. Their Place on the Stage: Black Women Playwrights in America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988. Brown-Guillory, Elizabeth. Wines in the Wilderness: Plays by African-American Women from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990. Bullins, Ed. Review f A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich, by Alice Childress. The New York Times Book Review, November 4, 1973: 36-40. Childress, Alice. "A Candle in a Gale Wind." In Black Women Writers, 1950-1980: A Critical Evaluation, edited by Mari Evans. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/ Doubleday, 1983. Childress, Alice. Interview. In Interviews with Contemporary Women Playwrights, edited by Kathleen Betsko and Rachel Koenig. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1987. Draper, James P., ed. Black Literature Criticism: Excerpts from Criticism f the Most Significant Works f Black Authors over the Past Two Hundred Years. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. Killens, John O. "The Literary Genius f Alice Childress." In Black Women Writers, 1950-1980: A Critical Evaluation, edited by Mari Evans. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1983. Koppleman, Susan. "Alice Childress: An Appreciation." Belles Lettres: A Review f Books by Women 10 (Fall, 1994): 6. Read More