JOHN PAYNTER'S JOINING THE NAVY: AN EXPRESSION OF LITERARY ASSIMILATIONISM AT THE NADIR

Abstract

This thesis examines the travel narrative Joining the Navy, or A broad with Uncle Sam, written by African-American enlisted sailor John Paynter in the late nineteenth century. Paynter's narrative is considered in terms of what Dickson Bruce calls "literary assimilationism," a phenomenon describing the strategy of late nineteenth and early twentieth century black authors to reproduce American mainstream values in their writing, in order to de-emphasize their racial otherness. Like civilian America, the American navy embraced Jim Crow policies during the post-Reconstruction era, and Joining the Navy adopts an assimilationist approach to a critique of these policies. Specifically, the thesis shows how Paynter's construction of his identity, his descriptions of his interactions with his shipmates, and his observations of the European, Asian, and African cultures with which he comes into contact are informed by an assimilationist strategy. The thesis suggests how Paynter's assimilationism both consciously and unconsciously critiques American racial attitudes.