Johnson, James Weldon,--1871-1938--Criticism and interpretation

There is much disagreement and uncertainty among critics over the message in James Weldon Johnson's novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. It has been misconstrued as a "passing novel" or as another novel with the "tragic mulatto" theme. In James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man the double consciousness of the protagonist reveals the central concerns Johnson had about racial identity and individual psychology. The protagonist's choices are between isolation and integration, the central issue in Johnson's later published pamphlet Negro Americans What Now? He believed that successful integration could occur through the arts and education. By the protagonist's revealing that he is capable of experiencing negative capability in Europe, Johnson describes the atmosphere to be striven for in America through social change.