Lawd Today: Analysis of Major Characters
"Lawd Today: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the lives of several key figures navigating the complexities of race, economic hardship, and personal strife in 1930s Chicago. The central character, Jake Jackson, is a conflicted African American postal worker grappling with anger and frustration stemming from his experiences with racism and a failed marriage. His wife, Lil Jackson, endures verbal and physical abuse, feeling trapped in a bleak existence and yearning for freedom. Another character, Albert (Al) Johnson, offers a contrasting perspective; he is hard-working and optimistic about his future despite the challenges surrounding him. Robert (Bob) Madison and Nathan "Slim" Williams, fellow postal employees, engage in camaraderie while coping with their own struggles, including health issues and financial burdens. The narrative also introduces Doc Higgins, a barbershop owner, and Duke, a young idealist, who highlight the broader societal implications of their experiences, contrasting capitalist self-help philosophies with the realities of racial oppression. Collectively, these characters embody the contradictions and complexities of life for African Americans during a time of significant social and economic turmoil.
Lawd Today: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Richard Wright
First published: 1963
Genre: Novel
Locale: The South Side of Chicago
Plot: Naturalism
Time: The Great Depression of the 1930's
Jake Jackson, a Chicago post office employee. A relatively young, round-faced, dark-skinned black man, Jake is angry, frustrated, and full of contradictions. He left Mississippi to escape the racial prejudice there, but he does not find his desired personal freedom and affirmation in Chicago. Although he is a Republican admirer of successful whites such as John D. Rockefeller and is contemptuous of the poor, he is deeply in debt and retains his job only as the result of political payoffs. At one moment, he sentimentalizes about the beneficence of whites, but at the next, he floods over with anger at their meanness. His hatred of anti-American radicals gives way to his feeling that Uncle Sam holds back his black nephews. Jake is a detestable man in many ways, but he is also a man trapped by racism, economic depression, and a failed marriage. As one day in the life of Jake Jackson ends, he lies bleeding in a drunken sleep.
Lil Jackson, Jake's wife. Lil, a good-natured woman, is fully alive only when Jake is away. She married him at the age of seventeen, when, according to Jake, she tricked him by claiming to be pregnant. Later, she did become pregnant, and he tricked her into an abortion, which led to the “female problems” that prevent her from having sex. Lil, trapped like Jake in a dead-end, bleak existence, tells him as he wakes on Abraham Lincoln's birthday that she has a tumor and needs an expensive operation. He spends most of their money on his own appearance and entertainment. Verbally and physically abused by Jake, she reports him to the post office. After he beats her again that night and she cuts him, the novel closes with Lil saying to herself, “Lawd, I wish I was dead.”
Albert (Al) Johnson, another post office employee. Al, a fat and dark-skinned African American, works hard, saves his money, and is the least depressed of the four friends. He is secure in his belief that he will amount to something someday.
Robert (Bob) Madison, another post office employee. Bob's apartment provides the friends with the setting for their bridge games. He spends the day in pain from untreated gonorrhea and is the focus of the friendly banter of his pals. He is divorced and complains about the alimony payments he must make. He and his friends spend most of their leisure and work time together, chatting about sex, racial mores, sports, the meaning of life and death, and their dreams of the future.
Nathan “Slim” Williams, another post office employee, the fourth of the close friends. Slim is a tall, slender womanizer who suffers from tuberculosis. His work at the post office is killing him, but he is trapped by lack of money and cannot leave. Slim and his three friends are rather naïve men who can quickly convince themselves that Father Divine, the black religious leader of the 1930's, may really be God, that whites are humane and smart, and that black people have only themselves to blame for their problems. They are also aware of racial oppression and white hypocrisy, and they are conscious that they live in a warped world that imposes its ambiguities and contradictions on them.
Doc Higgins, an older man who runs a barbershop. He shares Jake's dismissal of Duke's communism and his acceptance of the capitalist philosophy of self-help. He has influence in corrupt local politics.
Duke, an idealistic young man who tries to convince Doc that the problem of unemployment cannot be solved by self-help. He, like Doc, appears in a minor role to comment on race, politics, and the Great Depression. Their comments, taking place on Lincoln's birthday, contrast the promise of slave emancipation with the reality of racist suppression and warping of black lives.