{"id":193,"date":"2014-01-12T16:10:24","date_gmt":"2014-01-12T21:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/?p=193"},"modified":"2015-12-14T07:20:45","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T12:20:45","slug":"lila","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/lila\/","title":{"rendered":"Lila Mae Watson"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"theIntuitionist.png\"<\/a>
\nCharacter: <\/strong>Lila Mae Watson
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Source Text:<\/strong> <\/span>\u00a0Whitehead, Colson. The Intuitionist<\/i>. \u00a0New York: Anchor Books, 2000. Print.<\/p>\n

Entry Author: <\/strong>James Tyler<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It is unclear at the outset as to whether Lila Mae Watson is half-black, or as to whether her skin tone enables her to obtain a greater form of acceptance from her white colleagues, or to \u201cpass.\u201d Colson Whitehead chooses to focus marginally on Lila Mae\u2019s relations with her father, who was black and who taught her \u201cwhite folks can turn on you any minute,\u201d but little mention is made of her mother (Whitehead 23). Although it is made clear that they occupied the same house, when Lila Mae recalls her elevator repairman father showing her and\u00a0her mother his uniform, it is never made clear as to whether her mother might have been half-black. Aesthetically, Lila Mae exemplifies a \u201cmixed-race\u201d paradigm by her acceptance within a political minority, \u201cthe Intuitionists.\u201d Within this political minority, she holds the unique and isolated status as the only black woman \u201cIntuitionist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson finds herself within a racial identity equation of James Fulton and Pompey, both African American characters who choose to \u201cpass\u201d within white society, although Fulton\u2019s identity is not made clear until well into the novel\u2019s climax. As such, Lila Mae leads a lonely existence in the dark, with few African American role models other than Pompey, who is a conformist, and who appeases the white community, because success as an elevator inspector will ensure a better life for his family. Lila Mae is more determined and more of an individual, even if she has the capacity to be self-centered. She remains focused in the face of obstacles, and openly questions her culpability in the failed elevator inspection, rightfully insistent that there is something more to this situation and embarking on a \u201cquest\u201d to uncover the details in relation to the accident, and, in effect, finds herself discovering more about her own racial identity in the process. Effectively, Colson Whitehead inserts Lila Mae within the context of one of the oldest literary traditions, the \u201cQuest\u201d narrative, a narrative also ascribed to Danny in Steinbeck\u2019s Tortilla Flat<\/i> and Lila Mae\u2019s literary ancestor, Janie Mae Crawford, in Hurston\u2019s Their Eyes Were Watching God<\/i>.<\/p>\n

On this \u201cquest,\u201d Lila Mae is undeterred and un-intimidated when thugs invade her apartment, when she uncovers the deception of Natchez\u2019s, and certainly when Chancre\u2019s cohorts kidnap her. Still, Watson is compliant to a degree. She calmly accepts her Inspectors Academy\u00a0room, a converted janitor\u2019s closet. She is excruciatingly polite, even when under pressure, and she dresses conservatively and neatly, clearly invested in not doing anything to offend the sensibilities of a predominately white environment, and fully aware of the significance of her role as a black woman elevator inspector. Like Conrad\u2019s Jewel in Lord Jim<\/i>, Lila Mae is objectified by those around her; but while Jewel is objectified in a conventional sense, Lila Mae is utilized shamelessly by the Intuitionists for political gain, as proof of their diverse credentials, in contrast with the more conservative Empiricists. Lila Mae is an invaluable political tool as the only female, black elevator inspector, who just happens to be an Intuitionist. As such, whether or not she is willing to admit it or assume kinship with Pompey, she, in effect, is \u201cpassing\u201d to a degree, as well.This is where her resemblance to James Fulton, the figurative father of Intuitionism, is most crucial. Both Lila Mae and James Fulton emerge as essential to the novel\u2019s message, and are intrinsically linked to the novel\u2019s theme of social advancement in the context of identity politics. Both hail from a period in which the only African Americans allowed in the department store were employees, although Fulton had more direct experience. James Fulton, a light-skinned black man, plagued by the necessity of \u201cpassing\u201d racially, singles out Lila Mae Watson out in his private journals for a significant role within the Intuitionists. This leads one to wonder exactly to what degree he empathized with Lila Mae Watson. \u201cHe notices he has written Lila Mae is the one in the margins of his notebook,\u201d Whitehead writes. \u201cThat\u2019s right\u2026 She doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019s in for, he thinks, dismissing her from his mind\u201d (Whitehead 253).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Character: Lila Mae Watson Source Text: \u00a0Whitehead, Colson. The Intuitionist. \u00a0New York: Anchor Books, 2000. Print. Entry Author: James Tyler It is unclear at the outset as to whether Lila […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20604],"tags":[20577,20594,20580],"class_list":{"0":"post-193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-intuitionist","8":"tag-black","9":"tag-female","10":"tag-light-skinned","11":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}