UNIVERSITE MARIEN NGOUABI

ecole normale superieure

LCAN HOMEWWORK

Level : MASTER I

Section : ENSEIGNEMENT

Option : ANGLAIS

TOPIC :
Show to what extent ‘’Dreamer’’ dramatizes the Civil Rights Movement.

MONENGUE ESSENGO Saint Joannes

Enseignant
Dr. MAYOUMA

Academic year : 2021-2022

 Dreamer, a novel by Dr. Charles Johnson, a novelist, screenwriter, essayist,
professional cartoonist and the Pollock Professor of English at the University of Washington.
He is the author of more than sixteen books, including the PEN/Faulkner nominated story
collection The Sorcerer's Apprentice and the novel Middle Passage, for which he won the
National Book Award. It is set against the racial turbulence of the Civil Rights era; racial
segregation that is an attempt by white Southerners to separate the races in every sphere of life
and to achieve supremacy over blacks. Segregation was often called the Jim Crow system, after
a minstrel show character from the 1830s who was an old, crippled, black slave who embodied
negative stereotypes of blacks. Civil right movement can be seen as political, legal, and social
struggle by black Americans to gain full citizenship rights and to achieve racial equality. The
civil rights movement was first and foremost a challenge to segregation, the system of laws
and customs separating blacks and whites that whites used to control blacks after slavery was
abolished in the 1860s. "Dreamer" is the first work of fiction to explore King's life. Yet the
story, told by Mattew Bishop, one of King's devoted followers, is also a tale of doubles, warring
brothers, envy, and inequality. The novel introduces us to Chaym Smith, a man whose startling
physical resemblance to King wins him the job of official stand-in. In the course of training
Chaym to shield King from danger, Matthew comes to realize the philosophical magnitude of
our greatest civil rights leader and the ambiguities within the Movement itself, and he (and we)
are irreversibly changed. To what extent is the Civil Right movement dramatized in Charles
Johnson’s ‘’Dreamer’’?
 In his novel Dreamer, the distinguished Charles Johnson undertakes the majestic
task of fictionalizing the immortal Civil Rights leader of Dr. Martin Luther King. Johnson
approaches the life, the beliefs, and the events surrounding King by choosing a daring scenario.
He presents two sides of King through the literary device of an alter ego. He creates a character,
Chaym Smith, who looks exactly like King. This doppelganger is introduced by the narrator of
the novel, Mathew Bishop. Smith not only mirrors King in appearance, but he also possesses
an intelligence and charisma surpassing even that of the great leader. Smith is reared by the
King camp to become a second King, which will allow the real minister time and space to rest
and retain his sanity. What Bishop learns, however, is that Smith possesses an even greater
knowledge and gift for linguistic talents than the actual Reverend King himself. But more
alarmingly, Smith’s philosophies embody a violent nature. Smith’s genius makes it is difficult
for Bishop to determine which man is real and which has the best ideas for how to change the
course of history.

Firstly, the civil right movement is presented as an antiracist movement, pacific in king’s side
then aggressive in the majority of blacks’ head, what is actually what happened in the history
of the civil rights movement. In fact, Blacks couldn’t keep on undergoing all the racial
inequalities from whites that’s why they involved themselves in creating groups to face these
inequalities.

Secondly, it paints that urge to free oneself, especially for African American, from all the
mistreatments compelled by whites: social inequalities in buses, schools, church. Indeed, civil
rights movement in ‘’Dreamer’’ is painted through different groups of people and
organization with the same goal. ‘’Dreamer’’ faithfully recalls that urge within African
American to look for freedom and equality. That is what resulted in the creation of groups
like: Black power, Black panthers, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Yet, all these organizations do not share same ideas but they all aimed at the same objective
and can be found in the civil rights movement history.
Moreover, it is also painted through this call of duty for blacks with risky commitment
which required more than courage but also wit, wisdom and strength for, getting oneself
involved in joining it as it was the case in the nineties. Of course, the permanent risk of dying
at any moment during a riot, a boycott or a sit-ins made it a pantheon for those who dare getting
themselves involved in the civil right movement. King’s own life is a perfect illustration of that
fact.

Furthermore, it is presented through that dilemma and puzzle to solve for King who,
despite being pacifist is confronted to two realities: whites’ hostility toward the movement and
blacks’ aggressiveness in response to this hostility. It goes for a mutating movement from being
a pacifist movement (mainly in King’s mind) to an aggressive movement due to whites’ cruelty
and blacks getting rid of them mistreating their fellow African American. A peaceful dream
that starts to be interpreted as different means to reach the same goal, here again in similitude
with the African American history.

Finally, the civil right movement is dramatized through that mindset within blacks
not to bear whites mistreatment again, to acquire the American status that is to say, to be
considered as equal to any other American, was it white or else. And all this depiction is in
coherence with the civil rights movement era.

To conclude, Johnson succeeds most at depicting all sides of the Civil Rights era,
as it was split with hatred, hysteria, and fanaticism that stood in the face of King’s efforts. The
story allows readers to understand and consider the magnitude of King’s quest. The civil right
movement is dramatized as a confrontation between two visions of means to freedom e.i. a
quest for unity and love in King’s view through non-violence but an eye for an eye a toe for a
toe in others view that is use of violence. Were King’s non-violent methods and beliefs the best
approach? Johnson offers the character of Smith as a way to call into question the effectiveness
of non-violent means. He blurs King’s corporeality with Smith’s phantom to make a moral
issue about human sameness, where only values and beliefs create differences. However,
Johnson also makes clear that the greater danger lies in violence, as depicted through Smith. In
capturing the spirit, legacy, and remembrance of the great Martin Luther King, Dreamer is
ultimately a study of the possibility of self and the power of one’s beliefs to keep dreams alive.