Intersecting Race, Class, And Identity Through Satirical Resistance: A Critical Reading Of Paul Beatty's The Sellout

Abstract

In the present paper, The Sellout (2015) by Paul Beatty has been interpreted intersectionally to elaborate on how satire can indicate how race, class and identity are interrelated in contemporary American society. Even though the growing literature on the novel focuses on these types of analysis, the majority of researches are performed concerning them separately, obscuring their structural interdependence. The novel herein is placed in the context of Critical Race Theory, the study of satire, and the sociology of class and symbolic capital developed by Bourdieu to examine how Beatty is using grotesque humour and parody to criticise the post-racial and neoliberal arguments on class. The research takes a qualitative interpretive approach that is geared towards intensive reading of the short passages that highlight social contradictions that are dramatized in the text. Three overall lessons can be made out of the findings: (1) racism as a systemic aspect exists under liberalisms of racial development; (2) class as an economic order is also a symbolic capital, which forms identity formation; and (3) identity manifests itself as an unsteady and performative entity that is exposed through exaggerated forms of satire. Taken as a whole in one analytical prism, the study provides a more in-depth insight into Beatty as a satire as a form of cultural resistance and preconditions the development of further intersectional studies of modern African American satire. In addition, the study emphasizes the relevance of literary satire as a critical methodological lens for interrogating contemporary power relations, ideological discourse, and cultural representation within late-capitalist societies, thereby extending the analytical value of interdisciplinary literary research.