Picaresque form in Middle Passage

Throughout the book there are several cases which show how, in many ways, the book is picaresque, but in others, it is not. In traditional picaresque novels, the protagonist goes on some kind of journey. In the case of Middle Passage, quite clearly, Calhoun goes on a journey. However, it is not just a physical journey. It is also a highly mental journey. He goes from being a thief, who lives life day by day, and gets by the skin of his teeth, and the edge of his wits. Through the book, it seems like Calhoun doesn’t really recognize the fact that he is

Another requirement of the picaresque novel has been the satire and sarcasm concerning social classes. This is even demonstrated in the name of the book. The title lends itself to two concepts. The first and most apparent one is the fact that the middle passage is a slave trading route. The blatant overtone of the whole book is the slave route and trade. While the first is easily explained, the second meaning is not. By making a play on words, Johnson is also insinuating that the whole book is about being in the middle. Calhoun is thrust into the middle of these two groups with completely different interests and cultures. On one side, there are the people that he relates to the most: the whites. He has grown up around whites. It seemed that he was not previously aware of his African heritage, or he did not care. He was born and raised with western way of thinking in a westernized culture. He is a white man with black skin. The other side of the situation is that he has become acquaintances and almost friends with the Allmuseri aboard the ship. He feels sympathetic to their situation being a recently freed slave himself. He is stuck in the middle, during a passage or voyage no less. There are also other instances of the satire in some of the discussions between Calhoun and Falcon. One of said discussions takes place when Calhoun is first caught stowing away. Falcon explains his take on a situation that strangely resembles the issue of affirmative action to Calhoun. The fact that the issue is appearing aboard the ship and over one-hundred years before it’s time is highly satirical. Johnson appears to be trying to mock affirmative action, which is even more ironic seeing as how Johnson himself is a man of color.

The fact that Calhoun was a thief before boardi

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