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Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” and Mat Johnson’s “Pym” have some obvious contrasts in character development. The characterization of Dirk Peters is seemingly opposing according to both of these authors.
Starting with the obvious, in Poe’s story Peters is alive and in the present tense, while in Johnson’s story Peter’s is a dead man who’s bones have been miraculously preserved. Beyond the tense in which Dirk Peters is referenced comes the interpretation of his ethnic background. Poe who was famously racist, could write one of his novel’s main characters, as an African American, so instead categorizes him as a Native American, with similar physical featured to an African American. In “Pym” we see just the opposite, we see Peter’s African American ancestors practicing Native American customs, which our narrator deems unacceptable, and instead considers Dirk Peters to be African American. In Poe’s novel we see Dirk Peters as the hero, the man who again and again is responsible for saving Arthur Gordon Pym’s life. He is a man with enough intellect to survive in unfathomable circumstances, and is compassionate enough to spare the life of an innocent shipmate. He is heroic in his actions. However, when we are reading Pym we see personal accounts of Dirk Peters who is not well written, simple, and non-expressive in his accounts of what should be extraordinary events. In this story Peters does not save Pym’s life, in fact he abandons Pym, and tries to preserve his own life. Here he is the opposite of heroic in nature, but as Jamie pointed out, Dirk is still some form a of a hero to our narrator Chris Jaynes.The author’s visions of Dirk Peters are like fire and ice.
Why is it that Johnson, who was the later writer, decided to contrast Poe so drastically? Perhaps it was to add to the satirical nature of his novel. He may have done it to poke fun at the racism that Poe demonstrated, or to give us an entirely different understanding of the characters so it would be incomparable to Poe and therefore easier to understand his novel as a separate entity.
http://aalbc.com/authors/mat_johnson.htm
Mat Johnson was born the son of an Irish male and an African American Female. He, like his character Chris Jaynes grew up in poverty, and with an appreciation for literature.
