Character Clues
Character Analysis
Names
Jumpsteady. Sammy the Pimp. Fewclothes. There are some pretty interesting names that we get to come across while reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X. But they're not just there for show. If you've read the "Character Analysis" of Malcolm X, you know that each of Malcolm's nicknames has a distinct and important meaning for his life. But he's not the only one with important names.
Many of the nicknames in the story give us very basic and immediate information about the characters. Sammy the Pimp's name tells us that the most important thing about him is his job as a pimp. Jumpsteady got his name because he's a cat burglar and he needs to be steady when he jumps from ledge to ledge or he'll die. Perhaps the saddest of all, Fewclothes' name refers to the fact that he's a pickpocket with arthritis. Since his hands are mangled, he can't do his job. So he has no money, and thus few clothes.
While all of these names tell a story about their owner, they also do one more thing. Notice that they only belong to Malcolm's gangster friends? You only get a nickname if you are an integrated part of the gangster community. So these names also symbolize their inclusion in a society of thieves, pimps, and drug dealers. Some people might not want to be part of that kind of community, but hey, at least they have friends.
Clothing
The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the last book you'd expect to focus on fashion. But the sartorial transformation of Malcolm X from a country bumpkin into the activist we know with a distinct fashion sense tells a lot about the transformation of his personality as well. We guess the phrase "the clothes make the man" was not too far off.
Malcolm X starts out making all of the fashion faux pas. He writes:
I looked like Li'l Abner. Mason, Michigan, was written all over me. My kinky, reddish hair was cut hick style, and I didn't even use grease in it. My green suit's coat sleeves stopped above my wrists, the pants legs showed three inches of socks. (3.1)
Urkel, is that you? Just kidding. But his ignorance about fashion and what's cool is symbolic of his ignorance about the larger world and race relations in general.
When Malcolm dons his zoot suit, we know that he is finally a cool kid. And when he leaves those flashy suits for more conservative ones, we can see him changing from a partier into a criminal. But believe it or not, there's one more fashion transformation. Malcolm says: " Before I left, I went out and bought three things I remember well. I bought a better-looking pair of eyeglasses than the pair the prison had issued to me; and I bought a suitcase and a wrist watch" (12.6). He leaves prison and completely changes his wardrobe yet again. This time, his new fashion accessories symbolize his dedication to evangelizing the message of the Nation of Islam and his reformation from the kid who always was in trouble into a leader.
Not bad for a couple of changes of clothes.
Zoomorphism
Two types of people are often compared to animals in The Autobiography of Malcolm X: hustlers and white people.
When Malcolm X speaks about hustlers as animals, he is often referring to the way they live their lives. He says:
After I sold to some of those reefer smokers who had the instincts of animals, they followed me and learned my pattern. They would dart out of a doorway, I'd drop my stuff, and they would be on it like a chicken on corn. When you become an animal, a vulture, in the ghetto, as I had become, you enter a world of animals and vultures. It becomes truly the survival of only the fittest. (6.93)
For Malcolm, the difference between humans and animals is that humans think about their actions and can even plan for the future. The people that he refers to as animals have no thoughts about the future and all they care about are physical things.
Then there's the second category of people. Malcolm refers to white people as animals for slightly different reasons. He says:
On the island of Patmos was nothing but these blond, pale-skinned, cold-blue-eyed devils—savages, nude and shameless; hairy, like animals, they walked on all fours and they lived in trees. (10.128)
Doesn't that sound as if he has taken common racial epithets that are applied to black people and flipped them around to fit white people? The curly black hair, dark skin, and brown eyes of black people had often been pointed to as signs of their animalism. Being blond, pale, and blue-eyed was asserted as the height of beauty by dominant American culture. But in this narrative, everything is flipped upside down.
This might sound harsh, but it's not particularly surprising that a people who have been oppressed for hundreds of years would use some of the same techniques used against them on the people who have oppressed them. But the Nation of Islam also goes one step further. Malcolm writes:
Mr. Elijah Muhammad further teaches that the white devil race in Europe's caves was savage. The animals tried to kill him. He climbed trees outside his cave, made clubs, trying to protect his family from the wild beasts outside trying to get in. (10.133)
So not only were white people like animals, but they were below animals because the animals try to kill them. Based on that, it's obvious that the Nation of Islam doesn't think too highly of white people in general.