Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

Emo, the destroyers, white people

Emo is rotten to the core, and he's definitely the story's antagonist. He literally "antagonizes" Tayo every chance he gets, and at the story's end he tries to destroy him. But Emo is really just the figurehead of a much larger societal evil that the novel refers to as "the destroyers." A product of white culture, the destroyers see the world as an object instead of a living thing and use witchery to work for the destruction of the earth. The destroyers are responsible for WWII and the atomic bomb, but also more banal, everyday evils like animal abuse, the destruction of the environment, and racism.

The destroyers are generally associated with white people, but as Betonie tells Tayo, "You don't write off all the white people, just like you don't trust all the Indians" (XIII.71).