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My Pafology: Free
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Erasure, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race and Identity
Familial Obligation vs. Personal Needs
Artistic Integrity vs. Commercial Success
Authenticity
Summary
Analysis
Go heads to the warehouse where he works. When the manager tells him that he no longer has a job since he missed three shifts in a row, Go decides to check out the job Mama told him about. He takes a bus and arrives at a big house on a hill. There’s a red BMW convertible parked out front. He rings the doorbell, and a Black man wearing a pink shirt and khakis answers. When the man introduces himself as Mr. Dalton, Go is shocked—he assumed the man would be white. Go pulls himself together and says he's here about a job. A large Black woman—Lois—appears behind the man and explains that Go is the son of her good friend. Mr. Dalton agrees to hire Go and that Lois will get him settled.
Mr. Dalton is the name of a character in Richard Wright’s Native Son, which My Pafology blatantly parodies. Monk’s Mr. Dalton plays a similar role to Wright’s, though Wright’s Dalton is white, not Black. Go’s decision to pursue the job opportunity his mother arranged for him adheres to another convention of the stereotypical urban-fiction narrative arc, in which the angry, underachieving, oppressed protagonist is given a chance to rise up. In Erasure, Juanita Mae Jenkins’s We’s Lives in Da Ghetto follows a similar arc.
Themes
Once they’re alone, Lois sternly tells Go that she’s giving him this chance as a favor to his mama. If he makes one mistake, he’s gone. Go agrees, albeit grudgingly. Lois shows him around the massive, opulent property. Then she hands him a broom and tells him to sweep everything. Go does as he’s told. When he’s done, Lois says she’ll see him tomorrow. Before heading home, Go decides to stop by the pool hall, where he meets up with Tito and Yellow. He tells them about his new job. Tito instructs Van Go to make a list of all the valuables in the house so they can rob Mr. Dalton.
Lois’s harsh advice to Go and Tito’s subsequent scheme to rob Mr. Dalton seems to foreshadow Go’s eventual failure. Given what readers know about his aimlessness and self-destructive tendencies, it’s more likely that he’ll blow this opportunity, not rise above adversity to improve his quality of life. In My Pafology, Monk exaggerates the degree to which Go willingly acts against his self-interest in order to critique the stereotype of the disadvantaged Black protagonist whom society and institutional racism dooms to failure.
Themes
Later, Go, Yellow, and Tito spot a girl with a large behind. Go approaches her and says, “Hey baby.” She introduces herself as Kesrah and says she’s headed home and that her mama won’t be there. Tito tells Van Go to be careful—the girl looks about 14. Van Go shrugs this off and fantasizes about having sex with her. He tells her he’s going to give her a baby.
Monk continues to write a character so inarguably horrible and immoral—this chapter ends with him apparently heading off to commit statutory rape—testing the limits of his envisioned audience’s limits to empathize with the urban (Black) downtrodden.
Themes
