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Chapter 6
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 looks at the narrator—Van Go Jenkins—and his sister Tardreece (Baby Girl) and calls them “human slough.” Van Go—or “Go” for short—doesn’t know what “slough” means, but he’s angry. So he picks up a big knife and starts stabbing Mama. “I stab Mama cause I love her. I stab Mama cause I hate her. […] Cause I ain’t got no daddy,” Go thinks as he stabs. Then he wakes up, covered in sweat. He puts on some dirty clothes and steps outside, wondering which of his four babies he’ll see today. Go decides to visit Rexall’s mom, Cleona. Rexall “got Down Sinder,” but that’s fine.
The story of Van Go Jenkins relies on exaggerated stereotypes of Black struggle—Van Go’s name (a phonetic misspelling of Van Gogh) suggests his (high-brow) cultural illiteracy and his lacking formal education, for instance. Also notable is the foregrounding of gratuitous violence. Stereotypes like these are common fixtures in the “ghetto” literature Monk hates. Notably, Van Go’s story closely resembles the plot of Richard Wright’s Native Son. At the same time, the reader can’t help but see Monk’s ongoing troubles with Mother in Go’s simultaneous “love” and “hate” for Mama. It’s clear, then, that Monk is using My Pafology to work through some of his real ongoing issues, however feigned or satirical the plot of the story may be.
Themes
Go is 19 and doesn’t care about anything or anyone because the world doesn’t care about him. Cleona always talks about graduating and becoming a nurse. Lately, though, she’s been acting like she’s too good for Go. He resolves to go over to her place and put her in her place. As Go waits for Cleona outside the high school, he spots Willy the Wonker walking down the street toward him. He’s always singing and swaying, visibly on drugs. When Van Go rudely tells him to back off, Willy the Wonker laughs and insinuates he had sex with Van Go’s mom and might be Van Go’s father.
Go’s anger at the world is extreme to an exaggerated degree, for satirical effect. In Monk’s satire on urban literature, he represents the angry, disillusioned young Black man who lives at the margins and shirks the laws of civilized society. At the same time, Go’s sense of alienation reflects Monk’s own struggle to connect with and feel accepted by mainstream culture, even if this isn’t Monk the writer’s intention in writing My Pafology.
Themes
Finally, school lets out, and Cleona walks out the door. She’s talking to a rich guy named Tyrell, which upsets Go. Go suggests he and Cleona go over to her house so he can see Rexall. She agrees to let Go come over but says she has to be back at school in an hour. Inwardly, Van Go reflects on his two selves, “Nigger A and Nigger B.” A loves Cleona and wants what’s best for her. But B wants to hurt her and have sex with her.
Go continues to exhibit stereotypical traits typically found in characters of urban literature: namely, he is torn between two selves, a genuine self that wants to do good (“Nigger A”) and an angry, destructive self (“Nigger B”)—the result of systemic racism and discrimination—whose anger prevents that true, good self from shining through.
Themes
At Cleona’s house, Go notices a new couch, which upsets him. He insinuates that Cleona engaged in sex work to pay for it, and Cleona retorts that he’s supposed to pay her child support for Rexall but never does. Go apologizes to Cleona and starts touching her. Cleona is receptive at first but then tells him to stop. But Go doesn’t stop and proceeds to rape her, ejaculating onto the couch. Cleona screams that she hates him and demands that he leave, screaming that he raped her. Go just laughs and walks out.
Go’s rape of Cleona is calculated and morally indefensible. Monk includes the scene to point out the hypocrisy and self-delusion of readers who empathize with so-called “morally ambiguous” protagonists such as Go, suggesting that this empathy actually betrays readers’ racism rather than anti-racism: it’s as though they hold Black, marginalized characters to a lower standard of conduct.
Themes
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