mumbo jumbo
Ishmael Reed, through parody, allusion, and satire, manages to convey themeaning of Jes Grew without once explicitly defining it. There is a goodnever defines it; Jes Grew has no true definition. Even those infected by?anti-plague? that evokes the jump, jive, and wail, do what you feel likethem, can?t put their finger on exactly what is ?this Jes Grew thing? (33).explain Jes Grew without destroying its carefree feeling. Yet withoutJes Grew ?will peter out as in the 1890?s, when it wasn?t ready and had nosearch? (34). Ironically, this set both pro and anti-Jes Grew advocates onpath: to seek out its text. Apparently an inevitable outcome, this essaythe implications of the sought after text and the exact meaning of thatwhich Reed so delicately tip-toed around. Jes Grew at first glance reads as ?just grew.? Reed chose these words tophenomenon a sense of emergence. What was not there yesterday has suddenlytoday because it just recently grew. What used to be the mundane, every dayNegro is transformed into the enlivened carefree attitude of Jes Grew. The
Thoseinfected withthe anti-plague embody the qualities of freedom, but not just freedom fromoppression. As odd as the circumstances may seem,it has workedthat way for two thousand years. While atthe same time, Jes Grew?s opposition knows, ?You must capture itscelebration and thenit will dissolve? (64). They experience freedom from society and its constraints, freedom frompreviousmonotone thought, freedom from themselves. This was the motivation behindReed?ssatiristic comparison between the ideals of Communism and those of theWallflowerOrder embodied in the talking android. This is represented by the pandemic spreading of Jes Grew fromthe South,to Chicago, and then on to New York. Each case is embodieddifferently by itscarrier depending on the form of expression he or she chooses to display. James WeldonJohnsondescribed Jes Grew in terms of the music of the 1920?s. Akin to the bootlegging of the 1920?s, Jes Grew persists despite beingoutlawed. Still indefinable, ?Jes Grew, the Somethingor Other that ledCharlie Parker to scale the Everests of the Chord. Although set up by the forerunner of ragtime, jazz seemedtospontaneously appear on the music scene as a marvel distinct from anythingbefore.
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