Post #2 - Imperium in Imperio and and Examination of Mythic Language

While there is no doubt of its relevancy, there is some argument, and rightly so, of whether or not Sutton E. Griggs’ novel, Imperium in Imperio: A Study of the Negro Race, fits into the genre of sci-fi. While I would argue that for its time, Imperium was indeed a vision of an alternate or unbelievable future and is therefore a SF participant, that isn’t what intrigued me about this novel. In the first half (chapters I – X), there is a heavy sense of the novel as a series of episodic moral tales as well as mythic or fairytale-like language.

It was this language which intrigued me right from the beginning. In the prologue, entitled “Berl Trout’s Dying Declaration,” Berl states:

In the bottom of some old forsaken well, so reads our law, I shall be buried, face downward, without a coffin; and my body, lying thus, will be transfixed with a wooden stave. Fifty feet from the well into which my body is lowered, a red flag is to be hoisted and kept floating there for time unending, to warn all generations of men to come not near the air polluted by the rotting carcass of a vile traitor. (7)

This struck me immediately as a very folkloric sentence. In my studies of vampire folklore, it appeared more than once that it was practice to transfix the body of the alleged vampire into the ground. Doing so didn’t kill them – sorry, Buffy, no snarl and poof of dust – it just fixed them there, undead and still hungry, but unable to move. Treating a traitor in this same way shocked me, but it also has a powerful implication: if he is fixed down, he, and his way of thinking, are both unable to rise, but they still live. If his executioners didn’t fear that his treachery might return, why would they take such care to symbolically abolish it, going so far as to warn people away from the air he “polluted” like an infection? (It’s worth noting here that some cultures also thought vampirism to be catching, as a disease.) He is elevated to a kind of mythic status through these devices.

On a bit of a different note, Berl also asserts “I…pronounce myself a patriot” and cites the trope of a small evil for a greater good (7).  This is also folkloric in a general sense and recalls fairytale and myth.

The strongest fairytale connection, however, comes with the introduction of Belton. His “costume” is carefully noted, calling attention to his mismatched trousers and his coat, which was “literally a conglomeration of patches of varying sizes and colors” (10). Both of these recall the figure of the fool, often represented as the two-tone jester, as well as images of the parti-colored ensemble of Commedia’s Arlecchino.

However, the real fairytale implication doesn’t arrive until the bottom of the page: “A man of tact, intelligence, and superior education moving in the midst of a mass of ignorant people, ofttimes has a sway more absolute than that of monarchs. Belton now entered the school-room, which in his case proves to be the royal court, whence he emerges an uncrowned king” (10). This concept of the fool-king recalls not only cultural rituals and holidays of social reversal (or inversion), but evoke the sort of fantastical transformation one expects of myths and fairytales.

This fairytale structure is reinforced by the episodic nature of the chapters, several of which have a sort of moral lesson to be learned by the characters. The end of the first chapter, for example, offers the proverbial ‘don’t judge a book by its cover.’ Chapter III’s ending suggests that only the difficult things are truly worth it (18). The end of chapter IV concludes in proverbial language of its own, “Sometimes, even a worm will turn when trod upon” (24). The end of chapter V teaches never to generalize a single group of associated people together (28). The most important lesson appears not at the end of a chapter, but rather in the middle of chapter VII and the beginning of chapter X, with the lesson on revenge (40, 57). These moral conclusions come with the understanding that the reader will take the same lesson away with them, after the manner of an Aesopian fable.


Questions:
1. If Imperium in Imperio does indeed bring fairytales into conversation with Sci-Fi as a genre, how do they mix? Or is there an inherent conflict between these structures? Is there anything else you have read that reflects a mix of this kind?

2. How does Imperium in Imperio come into conversation with the structure of the Hero’s Journey? Does this contribute to its mythic status, or does it contribute to its SF affiliations? Is it possible that it aids both?