Textual Commentary on “Black Shack Alley”

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Textual Commentary on “Black Shack Alley”
What Happens in the Novel?
The "Black Shack Alley" by Joseph Zobel was written in 1950 when slavery was on the rise in the American community. The novel follows a story of a young boy, Jose Hassam, also referred to as JoJo living within the Caribbean Island slums named Martinique, where he experiences struggles such as racism, social class struggles, and identity issues. Jose lives with his stepmother because his father, Mr. Roc, claimed custody of his son after a sexual relationship with JoJo's mother, a slave on the sugar plantation but failed to marry her as a wife. Jose schools in the village school in Martinique, and a wise village elder named Medouze offers him informal education regarding their culture and what it entails to be an enslaved person(Zobel 32). The story shows Jose's efforts to attain upward mobility in a discriminative society after achieving a scholarship to study in an urban school during his secondary education. JoJo's parents continue to work on the sugar plantation, where they are poorly paid, making them live in a poor environment, the slums. Thus, Jose lives in his hometown to pursue his secondary education. He is fully aware that his family and Africans suffer, which motivates him to work hard in his new school and perform better than his classmates.
Context
Reading through the novel, one realizes that Zobel's purpose in narrating the story is to indicate various issues surrounding American society during slavery after colonial rule. The story took place in the context of increased Civil Rights Movements when African Americans were on the rise to oppose racism issues. The civil rights movements were meant to protest against the injustice and inequality in society as Africans and whites lived in segregated areas. The whites lived in the urban areas while the blacks mainly inhabited the rural regions. For instance, in 1955, Martin Luther led the African Americans to protest against Rosa Park's arrest through the "Montgomery Bus Boycott" after Rosa was arrested for failure to offer a white passenger a seat on the bus (Retzlaff 132). Segregation in the novel is seen when the African Americans are forced to work as enslaved people, and their children receive poor education in the rural areas. At the same time, the whites attain quality education in the urban centers. Due to his race, Mr. Roc, Jose's father, works as a slave on the sugar plantation. On the other hand, Jose receives less quality education in the Petit-Bourg school different from that of Forte-de-France an urban school where Jose pursues his secondary education, Jose receives advanced education. The school consists of white students, making Jose feel like an outsider.
The novel is narrated during the 1950s, when racial discrimination was high in America. Thus, Zobel wanted to indicate what it meant to be an African in a white-dominated society. The racial discrimination also fueled gender discrimination in which women were generally more despised than the male gender. Thus, though men of color were discriminated against, the bias was harsher on the women of color due to their race and gender. The discrimination of women during the 1950s led to ...