Double Consciousness and Wittman Ah Sing

In Maxine Hong Kingston's novel, Tripmaster Monkey, the protagonist, Wittman Ah Sing, serves as a striking example of what postcolonial theorists would call an interpellated subject as well as one who experiences what African-American theorists refer to as double-consciousness. Ambivalence brews in Wittman throughout the beginning of the novel as he navigates what he has internalized to be idiosyncrasies within himself. For instance, his own Chinese heritage perplexes him deeply as he gravitates toward while also distancing himself from this conflicted ancestry. On the one hand he graduated from UC Berkeley and lives in a gentrified part of San Francisco, a prime location for Asian and Pacific immigrants whom he looks down upon, referring to them as "FOB's" as he passes them on the streets, however on the other hand he experiences frequent and sudden outbursts of anger toward perpetrators of racism against Chinese immigrants, often railing against literary figures whom he clearly admires, like when he comes to the realization that Jack Kerouac would only have seen him for his ethnicity, a token foreign presence, like his, "little Chinese buddy Arthur Ma," from Big Sur, even going so far as to say, "If King Kerouac, King of the Beats, were walking here tonight, he'd see Wittman and think, "Twinkling little Chinese." Refute "little." Gainsay "twinkling.""

It's realizations like these in conjunction with certain characteristics that allow Wittman to pass racially as white, like for example his height at 6 feet tall and his bohemian attire which was common for mostly white hippies but not Asian-Americans, all of which engender an instability in Wittman's ontology by creating a significant cognitive dissonance; that fundamental tear in Wittman between a part of him representing his namesake and its mutual constitution with another part of him paralleling the Monkey King from the Chinese novel Journey to the West. From a psychological perspective this may illuminate his surreal solopsistic hallucinatory play-within-a-play trip towards the end of the novel, a vision catalyzed by his attending a Beatnik party where he feels out of place among all of the white, literary faces.

No other form of interpellation is more pervasive than when an individual participates, and is in fact dependent upon, the discourse of an ideology for deriving their sense of self. As such many postcolonial novelists are faced with the burden of choosing whether or not to write their works in English, for example Chinua Achebe's having to justify such a decision. Wittman's hyper awareness of language as a mediating presence in experience, and his desire to break away from the discourse which controls him, yet his inability to do so is instanced in his contemplation of the numerous different words describing varying hues of blond hair, but conversely how few words the english language has for black haired individuals, and he exclaims, "Hey, wait just a minute. Hold everything. Are there all those kinds of blondes or are there lots of words?" What the readers begins to realize as the novel progresses, despite Wittman's many apprehensions, as he continues to embrace the many sides of himself, foreshowed in moments when he declares his love for all races and peoples and his inclusionary visions for society, Wittman achieves a democracy-of-self in Western terms, and transcends his confines as postcolonial subject by living the high life of the mind. Here Wittman represents everything the Beat movement could have been, Beatific at its best, both in terms of Kingston's prose (definitely better than Kerouac's), but more importantly, as a much more subjective, sympathetic individual, which Kerouac and Ginsberg and company were too white to have accomplished.

Thor Ragnarok: Revealing the Double Consciousness of the Chaos G-d

Let’s talk about Thor Ragnarok, objectively the best movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thor trilogy and probably the closest we are ever going to get to a Planet Hulk movie.

Quick recap for anyone who hasn’t seen it:

We meet back up with Thor, who after escaping hell (literally) finds his brother masquerading as Odin, drinking and putting on plays to validate his own supposed heroics. He calls Loki out immediately ruining his fun and drags him away to find the real Odin. They return to Earth finding their father with a little help from Dr. Strange, only for Odin to tell that he’s dying and that when he does his evil daughter, that he never told the two of them about, will come to reclaim Asgard. He dies like a minute later, then Hela appears breaks Mjolnir and reveals Asgard’s imperialist past, before banishing her brothers. They end up on the Grandmaster’s planet and Thor gets captured for the gladiatorial rings there, while Loki consorts with the Grandmaster. Thor is forced to face off against Hulk, who has apparently been the jolly green giant for three years now. Long story short Thor, Loki, Hulk/Bruce, the other gladiators, and this really cool Valkyrie chick escape the Grandmaster's planet and then proceed to a boss battle with Hela in which they blow up Asgard (after getting all plot relevant characters off world) to prevent Hela from establishing a tyrannical govt.

What makes it worth discussing:

While the movie merits praise based on its comedic aspects alone, what really elevates the film is the subversive postcolonial critique it makes within the overall context of the Thor trilogy. Prior to the big reveal of Asgard's Imperialist past as shown by the shattered murals, the Asgardian peoples are indisputably the heroes of the narrative, justified in war by their superior moral status. They are quite literally depicted as the saviors of humanity in the first film, when they defeat the Jotun preventing an ice age on Midgard (aka Earth). The halo-esc discs drawn behind the head of Odin in the remade murals certainly attest to this idea.

History Rewritten in Art; the mural before misconceptions are quite literally shattered.

So when Hela reveals the reality of Asgardian rule and subjugation, the attempts of the Jotun to create a new Jontunheim on Midgard using the Casket of Ancient Winters (think Arc of the Covenant religious significance levels), takes on the aspect of a peoples searching for a way to ensure their own cultural identity continues on even if it means abandoning their ancestral home (an action mirrored by the Asgardians in the newest film). King Laufrey (King of the Jotun) isn't a monster in this context, but a revolutionary put down by a tyrannical ruler. 

A Totalitarian Reality of War and Enslavement

His struggle is silenced by the rewritten history of an empire and the very objective of his last ditch effort towards freedom is spat on as his son last of the royal bloodline is raised by the enemy who subjugated his people. 

Reading Loki as a Colonized Subject:

Colonialist ideology was instilled in Loki early, even as a baby he attempted to mimic the culture in which he was being raised, shifting his appearance magically to appear Asgardian. 

Baby Loki shape-shifting to match his oppressors

For all he knew he was Asgardian, his adopted family had allowed him to live under this misconception and had raised him as if he was such. Maybe he didn't fit all the respected personality traits associated with his culture, but this was his family. He was Asgardian, until of course he wasn't.  

Loki's True Parentage is Revealed

In the above scene from the first Thor movie, he accuses Odin of seeing him as just "another stolen relic", tears in his eyes as the entirety of his worldview is shattered just as thoroughly as the murals will later be. It is in this moment that Loki begins to embody the ideal of Double Consciousness. He is inextricably caught between two cultures, the one he grew up in and the one he was born into, yet he belongs to neither: too much the Asgardian to ever hold standing among the Jotun and too Jotun to ever sit on the throne of Asgard.

Unable to reconcile with this reality, Loki becomes 'unhomed'. He leaves Asgard and denounces his relationship to Odin and Frigga, finalizing his separation in the physical not just psychological realm.

His ensuing character arc follows the story of him rebelling and returning as he attempts to come to terms with the aspects of himself he never before had the luxury to explore and how they fit into the framework of who he once was. The way he goes about this isn't always for the best (referring of course to the disaster in New York), but it is the psychological alienation from the self which ultimately drives his at times incredibly violent and self indulgent actions. 

Conclusion:

Thor Ragnarok in revealing the Imperialist past of Asgard, allows one a unique glimpse into the characterization of Loki as not a villain, but a man inextricably caught between two cultures, whose at time erratic behavior can perhaps be attributed to an unstable sense of self. His title of Chaos G-d a referencing not only to the unrest he acts upon the world, but the unrest within.