White Rat

Allison S Curseen63 Comments

Gayl Jones’ short story “White Rat” (1977) involves the narration of a very light-skinned man called “White Rat”, his Black wife Maggie, and their son Little Henry, who has a clubbed foot. It starts in the present tense with Maggie returning to live with the narrator and their son after running off with J.T., who is “blacker’n a lump of coal” (Jones 13), returning pregnant. The narrator then tells stories of his past that includes Maggie and his friends. These stories include scenarios where the narrator is always mistaken for a White man, but clearly places his loyalties with his Black friends and family. We then come back to the present and learn that the narrator was a drunk and that was the reason Maggie left before, taking the child for a single night so that he wouldn’t hurt him, but ultimately leaving Henry with the narrator, who quit drinking to take care of him.

The most intriguing aspect of this text for me was that the narrator’s family name was Hawk, while his nickname was “White Rat”. The first thing this made me think of was the fact that hawks regularly hunt and feed on rats and mice – undoubtedly defining each other as enemies. This seems to be curious as not only does the narrator’s father have a strong hatred for “hoogies” (Jones 5,6,11), the narrator also makes it clear through various stories that he has lighter pigmentation to the point that he himself is often mistaken for a “hoogie”. Along with the family name of “Hawk” and the narrator’s nickname of “White Rat”, it provides an interesting parallel and a base for a potential father-son hatred that may carry over to the narrator and his son, as the narrator also claimed to hate “hoogies” as much as his father (Jones 6). This aspect of the parent-child relationship also seems to be quite similar to “Color Struck” in Emma’s dislike for her child’s lighter skin color.

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