Middle Passage Charles Johnson (1990)
Middle Passage is, among other things, a burlesque
and a rich parody of African-American freedom
and neo–freedom narratives. The story is set in
1830 in New Orleans, Africa, and aboard a ship on
the Atlantic Ocean. Primarily comprising a ship’s
log entries, the linear narrative charts the radical
transformation of Rutherford Calhoun, the cen-
tral character. Though he is physically free when
the narrative begins, Rutherford is still bound by
the predestination clause of his former master’s
narrative, a clause that links his literary destiny to
that of RICHARD WRIGHT’s socially overdetermined
thief and murderer, Bigger Thomas (NATIVE SON,
1940). Stealing what others own and value brings
Rutherford material property and the experiences
associated with owning it, but it leaves him in a
perpetual state of desire.
Rutherford believes he possesses no capital,
cultural or otherwise. CHARLES JOHNSON captures
his protagonist’s mindset with the question, “for
was I not, as a Negro in the New world, born to be
a thief?” (47). In such a state of perceptual blind-
ness, Rutherford can see himself only as the reader
sees him—as a thief, a deceiver, and an opportun-
ist who engages in human interaction for the sole
purpose of self-gratification. By casting Rutherford
as someone who is physically free but nevertheless
limited by perceptual blindness, Johnson tackles
the very definition of freedom as it is understood
in Western culture, as a state or quality associated
with property ownership.
Rutherford’s transformation takes place during
a reverse journey through Middle Passage, after he
stows away on the Republic, a slave ship. (The Mid-
dle Passage is the path slave ships traveled through
the Atlantic Ocean with their human cargo, where
African-American identity is said to have begun.)
Rutherford is attempting to escape the obligation
of marriage to the schoolteacher who has paid
his debts to Papa Zeringue, a major figure in the
New Orleans underworld. Soon discovered by the
ship’s staff, Rutherford is aided by a group of cap-
tive African Allmuseri wizards and their god, who
are among the Republic’s cargo. After coming face
to face with the Allmuseri god and witnessing ex-
traordinary examples of self-sacrifice during the
ship’s doomed return voyage, Rutherford sees with
new eyes. This liberated perception begins his real
freedom; it allows him to restructure a faulty syl-
logism that has driven his thieving behavior: Free-
dom is property; I have property; therefore, I am
free. Transformed, he embraces his obligations and
opens up the possibility for the love that will dis-
place his unfulfillable desire.
Richly complex and deeply philosophical, Mid-
dle Passage intertextualizes with Plato’s The Re-
public, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and Benito
Cereno, Dante’s Inferno, RALPH ELLISON’s INVISIBLE
MAN, TONI MORRISON’s BELOVED, The Odyssey,
and Native Son. More important, Johnson’s pro-
tagonist owes his existence as a fictional charac-
ter to the existence of real-life freedom narratives,
records of the experience of New World slavery.
Moreover, Middle Passage is a fitting contribu-
tion to the tradition of the African-American
male quest narrative. Johnson’s best-known novel
and most critiqued work, Middle Passage won a
National Book Award in 1990, although Johnson
has claimed that Oxherding Tale (1982) is a better
effort. Several critics have compared the novel to
Toni Morrison’s Beloved for its treatment of slav-
ery, property, and desire.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boccia, Michael. “An Interview with Charles John-
son.” African American Review 30, no. 4 (Winter
1996): 611–618.
Byrd, Rudolph, ed. I Call Myself an Artist: Writings By
and About Charles Johnson. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1999.
Fagel, Brian. “Passages from the Middle: Coloniality
and Postcoloniality in Charles Johnson’s Middle
Passage.” African American Review 30, no. 4 (Win-
ter 1996): 625–634.
Goudie, S. X. “Leavin’ a Mark on the Wor(l)d: Marks-
man and Marked Men in Middle Passage.” African
American Review 29, no. 1 (1995): 109–112.
Johnson, Charles. Being and Race. Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988.
———. “Philosophy and Black Fiction.” Obsidian 6,
no. 1–2 (1980): 55–61.
Little, Jonathan. “An Interview with Charles John-
son.” In I Call Myself an Artist: Writings by and356 Middle Passage