In contrast to the Industrial Age hero, fighting a great fight with a steam drill, his contemporary’s only purpose is to break the junketeers’ record – a pointless struggle, exposing the shallowness of the character. ‘The novel introduces him as a spendthrift and freeloader whose primary concern is where his next free meal will come from… The novel is a stylistic delight that deftly moves between Sutter’s meandering existence and versions of John Henry’s focused attempt to beat the machine’ (Hamilton and Brian 2010, 386).
He is a true hero of our time – of the Information Age, whose head is full of junk and popular memes of successful, but at the same time, lightsome life. Unlike John Henry, Sutter does not provoke thoughts about human dignity. That was a noble, though futile, attempt to demonstrate that a human-being was not less capable, than a machine, and of a much greater worth and dignity, and an attempt to protest against soullessness of machinery and the upcoming substitution of humans by them. John won, but at the cost of his own life, as his heart exploded soon after his victory. One day he decided to compete with a steam drill. John Henry was an incredibly strong man who worked for a railroad company as a steel-driving man. The author uses an allegory, comparing and contrasting these two Afro-Americans, fighting their fights. Sutter, who got an assignment to cover the festival, devoted to John Henry. Such a scope is achieved via intertwinement of two stories: the story of a favorite American hero who lived in the 19th century, John Henry, and the story of our contemporary, a young freeloading journalist, J. This piece of fiction presents a panoramic view on American culture and history, and gives insights into people’s strives of both of the Information Age, and of the Industrial Age. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
John Henry Days is a novel by Colson Whitehead that received outstanding praises from critics of modern literature. Learn More “John Henry Days”, Colson Whitehead
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