Intro
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only novel by Edgar Allan Poe. It tells the story of—surprise—Arthur Gordon Pym, who boards a whaling ship, where he gets into all kinds of trouble. There's a mutiny. There's a shipwreck. There are scary "natives."
In her book Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Toni Morrison says that there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in this novel, especially in relation to blackness and whiteness. Let's zoom in on a passage from the novel that Morrison analyzes in her book. The passage, which is written in diary form, comes right at the end of the book, when Nu-Nu, a "native" who has been taken prisoner by Arthur Gordon Pym, dies.
Quote
March 21st.—A sullen darkness now hovered above us—but from out the milky depths of the ocean a luminous glare arose, and stole up along the bulwarks of the boat. We were nearly overwhelmed by the white ashy shower which settled upon us and upon the canoe, but melted into the water as it fell …
March 22nd.—The darkness had materially increased, relieved only by the glare of the water thrown back from the white curtain before us. Many gigantic and pallidly white birds flew continuously now from beyond the veil, and their scream was the eternal Tekeli-li! as they retreated from our vision. Hereupon Nu-Nu stirred in the bottom of the boat; but upon touching him, we found his spirit departed. And now we rushed into the embraces of the cataract, where a chasm threw itself open to receive us. But there arose in our pathway a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow.
Analysis
At first glance, this passage seems to be just a bunch of landscape description. There's an ocean. There are birds. There's a cataract. It's all a little bit eerie, and cold.
But Morrison tells us to look at all the references to light and dark, black and white here. The "sullen darkness" of the air is contrasted with the ocean's "milky depths." There's a "white ashy shower," and a "white curtain" before the boat. The birds are "white." And then there's this weird "shrouded" figure that appears at the end, whose skin is "of the perfect whiteness of the snow."
So what does all this have to do with Ethnic Studies? Well, Morrison points out that the white figure at the end of the novel appears only after the death of Nu-Nu, the black "native" who is taken prisoner by Pym toward the end of the book ("upon touching [Nu-Nu], we found his spirit departed").
According to Morrison, this suggests that there's some serious subliminal stuff going on with ethnicity here. The impenetrable, powerful white figure appears only after the black figure Nu-Nu is destroyed. Morrison thinks there may be a fantasy of white mastery and dominance at play here. Poe, consciously or unconsciously, seems to be asserting the power of whiteness (and white people) over the impotence of blackness (and black people).
But it's not quite that simple, because the imagery also suggests some insecurity or fear. If the white figure (and white people) are so much more powerful than Nu-Nu (and black people), why does Poe have to go out of his way to give us this way over-the-top image of the white shrouded figure? He's trying so hard to establish the power of this white figure that we end up questioning whether it's that powerful at all.