Previous
My Pafology: Nine
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 is driving Fat Man’s Ford Torino when he hears helicopters above him. In his panic, he misses the exit to head south to Mexico. He’s nearly out of gas now, so he pulls off the freeway and walks into a post office yielding his gun. The people inside start to panic. An old woman asks him why he’s doing this, and he says, “I ain’t had no life,” in response. Meanwhile, the police assemble outside. Go grabs a teenage girl and walks outside with her. He threatens to shoot her if the police try anything. Then he demands a car. The police tell him they have one on the way.
Go’s ineptitude emphasizes the two-dimensionality of his character, contributing to My Pafology’s satirical tone. Go’s explanation for his reckless, unlawful behavior (“I ain’t had no life”) points to how the systemic racism of his society has doomed him to a life of pointless criminality, but the melodramatic tone of his words undermine the truth of their message.
Themes
Go and the girl get into the car. He smiles at the news camera trained on him as he turns the keys in the ignition. Just then, there’s a loud explosion. For a moment, Go thinks he’s been shot. Then the police yank him from the car and throw him on the ground. He asks what happened, and one officer laughs and says the air bag went up. Go looks up at the cameras as the police kick him. He smiles and says, “Hey, Mama. […] Hey, Baby Girl. Look at me. I on TV.”
Go’s direct address to the cameras suggests his resignation but also his self-satisfaction—he’s on TV! That he is only able to achieve fame and recognition by committing crimes points to Monk’s central critique of the publishing industry, which only seems interested in publishing Black authors whose works adhere to a narrow, limiting, and (in Monk’s view) offensive portrayal of what it means to be Black in America. Note the language Go uses in his direct address to Mama and Baby Girl (“I on TV”)—it will gain deeper significance at the end of Erasure.
Themes
