Black Shack Alley; a story about struggle and resilience

Joseph Zobel’s Black Shack Alley was an incredibly moving and eye-opening story that I thoroughly enjoyed. Zobel does a really good job at eliciting emotions throughout the book as I felt myself becoming more and more attached to the story as it actually felt like watching a documentary about José’s life. This book was written in quite a bit of detail which I think is reflective of José’s constant curiosity about narratives and the experiences of others. 

One of the themes that I enjoyed about this book, was the idea of storytelling. José has such a fondness for the stories told by others and the imaginations that come along with them. In Part One, it is evident that he loves the daytime and the sun because that’s when he can play with his friends freely, however, the night also brought him enjoyment because that was when Mr. Médouze’s stories were told. This theme carries on throughout the rest of the book however José himself is not the one telling the stories because he always felt like his stories were inferior to tell when compared to the ones of Jojo’s or Carmen’s. However, I think upon reading José’s story throughout this novel, I beg to differ.

“And in his tragic position there, on the cross, seemed to me as incomprehensible as Mr. Médouze’s. And yet, he wasn’t black…” (88)

One of the more obvious themes of this book is racism and classism and we see it portrayed from the very beginning to the very end of the book. This quote specifically stood out to me because José is seeing Jesus’ suffering on the cross, and attributing this pain to being black, something he inherently grew up with and sees as the norm. He becomes more aware of this segregation as he grows older however I think that this childhood innocence of questioning why someone outside his own race has to be in pain was incredibly impactful. You see this slow realization span throughout the whole book until near the end of Part Three where he is questioning Adréa at the bar about her prejudice towards his race and the roots of where it derives from. I found this moment extremely interesting because you can see the progression from him being younger and simply understanding racism as the way the world works, to him being older and questioning why these prejudices exist.

The question I would ask this week would be the following; How does Jose’s journey from the Black Shack Alley to the Lycée help form his understanding of racism and oppression?