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My Pafology: Too
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Erasure, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race and Identity
Familial Obligation vs. Personal Needs
Artistic Integrity vs. Commercial Success
Authenticity
Summary
Analysis
Mama and Baby Girl are just getting back from grocery shopping when Go arrives home. Go bickers with Baby Girl. Mama scolds him for swearing, so he swears at her, too. Then he angrily storms off to the other room to watch TV. He tells Mama to call him when it’s time to eat. When dinner is ready, Mama calls Go into the kitchen. He sits down at the table and complains about the Hamburger Helper Mama and Baby Girl made, then calls Mama fat. Mama loses it, picking up a knife and pointing it at Go. Baby Girl screams at Mama not to hurt Go. Go gets up, knocking a chair over, and heads out. He wanders the streets and encounters the rich guy with the Jeep whom Cleona was talking to earlier. They get into a fight, and Go punches the Jeep guy’s face into a bloody mess.
Not only does Go disrespect women he encounters on the street, but he also has no respect for his mother or sister, who provide him with shelter, food, and emotional support—to a point. When Mama pulls a knife on Go, it shows how Go’s bitterness and anger worsens the misfortune and strife he’s been unjustly dealt in life. In his confused anger and bitterness, he pushes away those who try to help him. Scenes like this, though they don’t necessarily show Go in a positive light, at least portray him as tragic. Try as Monk may to craft a one-dimensional, exaggerated caricature of the angry Black youth, some humanity and honesty slips through.
Themes
Eventually Go heads home. That night, he dreams he’s on an island full of beautiful, skimpily dressed women. He dreams of all the babies he’ll have with them and the names he’ll give them, going through the ABCs: “Avaricia, Baniqua, Clitoria, […] Fantasy, […] Mystery [...].” But then he looks down at his penis and sees it’s just a bump. All the women laugh at him as he tries to cover himself. Then he wakes up, covered in sweat.
This scene reverts to pure, mocking satire, with Go’s irresponsibility, toxic masculinity, and (for lack of a better word) stupidity on full display with his dream of fathering a whole alphabet of babies he can’t afford to pay for. Note the names Fantasy and Mystery, which Monk took from Tamika Jones, the woman he spoke with in the waiting room of Lisa’s clinic. This detail reinforces the degree to which My Pafology draws from Monk’s own life and experiences.
Themes
At breakfast the next morning, Mama tells Go about a job she’s heard about in West Hollywood that involves driving a car around for a rich man. Go doesn’t want to be some white man’s chauffer, but Mama gives him a piece of paper with the man’s address written on it anyway. Go pockets the paper. Later, as Mama is washing the dishes, Go confronts her about his father. What’s his name? Mama tells him to shut up. Go storms out.
Once more, My Pafology—despite being a work of obstinate, angry satire—points to some of the conflicts Monk is working through in his real life. In this scene, Go’s anger at Mama for not being forthcoming—with Go or with herself—about Go’s father mirrors Monk’s frustration with his own mother for her refusal to talk about his father’s personal papers.
Themes
