F.K. Me’s psychological experiments
on his son shape the narrator’s mentality in his adult life throughout the
novel. Although these tests are wildly unorthodox and abusive entirely, hey have a great affect on the narrator’s
psyche as he grows up. At first, when F.K. Me wants to test “Servility and Obedience
in the Hip-hop Generation” and forces the narrator to deliver himself an
electric shock whenever he answers a question about Black History wrong, Bonbon
accepts that he is just a passive test subject for his father’s research
(Beatty 31). But once the study escalates to a dangerous level, Bonbon is no
longer apathetic to his father’s purpose but engaged in the experiment saying,
“I pressed the red button, self-administering a nerve-shattering, growth
–stunting electric shock… because now I, too, was curious” (33). This experiment serves as a shift in the
narrator’s psyche and the moment the narrator starts to emulate his father’s
behavior. He says, “I think about all the lines of ad infinitum bullshit my
father shoveled down my throat, until his dreams became my dreams” (55). In
this sense, Bonbon’s curiosity, although not by choice, can be attributed to the
experiments of his father. Even his decision to try and re-segregate the town
of Dickens can be argued to be a sort of social experiment in itself. When the
narrator takes to spray-paining the outline of the town, he is puzzled by the
amount of elderly people in the community and even himself who feel so strongly
unable to step across the meaningless white line (109). As a result, is evident
that his father’s experiments, while scientifically bogus, do have an
internalized affect on the narrator. Bonbon does not learn much from the
results of the experiments themselves in the same way that his father tries to
make sense of the evidence, but he is changed by experiencing the psychological
tests first hand. They cultivate a curiosity within him that leads him to
sharing his plan with the Dum Dum Intellectuals and despite their indifference,
carry on with his plan to re-segregate the town of Dickens (99). These
psychological experiments shape the narrator’s world view and prepare him to
approach unpredictable situations through the novel through a psychological and
logistical way.
The crude, underdeveloped, and quite frankly insane experiments that Carl Jung performs on the narrator in The Sellout certainly serve as character development. They greatly impact how he views the world—and not just because these experiments most likely destroyed brain matter. Analyzing the narrator through the experiments proves crucial; however, analysis of the experiments alone reveals yet another commentary from author Paul Beatty. The experiments that the narrator endures could refer to the experimental attitude towards the black race as a whole in the United States. On the novel’s very first page, the narrator refers to himself as his father’s “gangly, absentminded black lab rat” (Beatty 27). Historically, white people viewed the black race as dispensable; they used black people as slaves or for raping and treated them as animals for the most part. In the 20th century, Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment comes to mind when discussing the expendable quality of the black race. And even today, police brutality will appear in concerned minds. The narrator being maltreated can refer to both the many times throughout history and the current, common belief of black people being seen as disposable. After the narrator father’s “[burns] his ‘findings’ in the fireplace” (Beatty 35). The narrator reflects, “I was a failed social experiment. A statistically insignificant son who’d shattered his hopes for both me and the black race” (Beatty 35). The narrator’s failure represents the entire “failure” of the black race; after being used and abused in multiple experiments, they will never win or prove themselves worthy. Despite never requesting to be experimented on, the black race will be seen as the reason for any experiment’s complications or failure.
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