JOe christmas is a christ figure by kelly snyder
Joe Christmas and Jesus Christ
At first glance Joe Christmas seems to be the complete opposite of everything Jesus stands for and is. Joe is violent, has sex with prostitutes and his all around attitude to everyone and everything around him. Joe is one of those people who doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than himself. He doesn’t want to be cared for because to him he has to care for others in return. Joe is mimetic; his subconscious tells him he needs to imitate someone in order to have a personality. He can’t form his own personality because he doesn’t know how. In the text Mimesis and Violence, Girard explains why Joe is violent. Joe tries to imitate other people and other people imitate him therefore becoming one in the same and their individual personalities hidden in their subconscious clash and lead towards the violence between Joe and other people. In all actuality, though it may not seem so, Joe is in an obscurely abstract way a resemblance of Jesus Christ, Joe is a Christ figure whether it seems like it or not.
Joe Christmas is miming someone though it is not clear who. Joe’s miming comes from his subconscious; consciously he doesn’t realize he is trying to be someone else. It is purely in his mind that he is his own person. Joe imitates Christ but, in an utterly and completely abstract way. Joe Christmas has many things about him that are seemingly similar to Jesus Christ. The first similarity between the two that most people would pick up right away is their initials J.C. Christmas is both the birth of Jesus and the finding of Joe. Joe Christmas was named for being found on Christmas Eve. Joe is representative of Christ. He and Christ bother flee because someone wants to hurt them, it is not of there on freedom that they flee it is because of their guardians. The guardian of Christ is Mary and of Joe is the janitor, his grandfather. Joe is a scapegoat for many people, everyone blames their problems on Joe because they need someone other than themselves to blame. Jesus is blamed foe just about everything that happens to people because the people of the bible need someone to blame their problems on. Jesus is the scapegoat because no one particularly likes him as is with Joe Christmas. Joe is the scapegoat for Bobbie to be able to leave town. He is also a scapegoat for just about everyone around him such as the dietician. Just as the janitor, Joes’s grandfather watches Joe’s persecution by the other kids at the orphanage for being different, black; God watches the persecution of Jesus both stand by and do nothing because ether can’t intervene. Just as the Janitor knows what is to happen to Joe Gods knows what is going to happen toy Jesus.
Joe Christmas therefore is a Christ figure.
Anh Nguyen - JC and Mimesis
Anh Nguyen
B
2/23/07
Joe Christmas and Mimetic Rivalry
Being violent, sleeping around, and rejecting all forms of prayer and religion, Joe Christmas seems as if he is the opposite of everything that Jesus Christ was. However, when one further analyzes Joe, one can see that Joe Christmas is actually like Jesus Christ and can be regarded as a Christ figure. Joe Christmas was, as stated above, violent, slept around, rejected religion, did not imitate anyone, died for no one, and acts on impulse. However, at the same time, he was a lot like Jesus Christ, other than the fact that both of them had the same initials. Joe had only cared for one person when he was young, Alice at the orphanage. She was like his mother, but never was married and did not give birth to him. Similar to Mary, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, they were Jesus’ and Joe’s mother, except that Alice left Joe when she went and got married. This is where the mother similarities split. Jesus was born on Christmas and Joe was found on Christmas Eve, with father or grandfather watching them, respectively. Also, both of them fled from their homes, unwillingly, at a young age because someone wanted to get rid of them, for Jesus is was Harod and for Joe it is his grandfather, Mr. Hines. Another similarity is that they both have someone who knows what is going to happen to them in the time near their death, for Jesus it is God, for Joe it is his grandfather again. Jesus and Joe were both persecuted for who they were, Jesus for being the king of the Jews and Joe for being Black and a murderer. Jesus walked to his death to get crucified while Joe ran towards Hightower’s place and was killed. In Girard’s Mimesis and Violence, A imitates B and B imitates A, therefore the two vie to become the same person, thus causes violence between the two of them because they vie to become the same. Also, there are scapegoats who are always used by the scapegoaters as those in Jerusalem used Jesus and the people in Jefferson used Joe Christmas so that they would not be blamed. Jerusalem and Jefferson are the two places in which the stories take place; the similarity is that they both begin with the letter J as does Joe and Jesus’ names. At first glance, Joe is everything but that of a figure of Christ, but peering in closer and looking at how his life was in context, Joe was the figure of Christ in Light in August and the ironic thing is that he probably knows it and that’s why he hates himself so much for it. Joe had always hated religion because of McEachern and hates himself. Deep inside, Joe knew he was Jesus and that’s why he hated himself. Joe is Jesus, he is the Jesus of Light in August.
-Anh Nguyen
Ellen Wagner - Joe Christmas Essay
Ellen Wagner B 2/23/07
Despite the fact that Joe Christmas’s initials are JC and his last name is Christmas, he is the antithesis of a Christ figure. Jesus was kind, loving, and non-biased. He taught, visited with the poor and sick, and in the end gave up his life willingly. Joe Christmas on the other hand is violent, impulsive, and biased against everyone (even himself). And in the end he died for no one, not even himself. Joe Christmas spends his life thinking things through, but ends up acting mostly on impulse. From a very young age, he learns the ways of the world, except he learns them all mixed up. Because of this, when he acts, it is from a skewed thought process. In the text by Girard Mimesis and Violence he says that two people (A and B) try to mimic each other, and eventually start to become each other, which only leads to violence. Because of Jesus being God (or saying he is), it leads to his being beaten and finally crucified. But who is Joe trying to become? He respects no one, and refuses to worship and god. In regard to the men in his life; the janitor (who turns out to be his grandfather) kidnaps him, Mr. McEachern beats him and tries to force religion on him, and Joe Brown turns out to betray him to the police. Each of these men he treats with cold indifference. During his childhood, he only allowed one person to care for him; Alice. Alice lived at the orphanage with him, but ends up getting adopted and leaving him. After this he allows no one, especially not women, to take care of him. The women in his life are equally not worthy of his respect (in his opinion); the dietitian, Bobbie, and then Joanna Burden all make him further hate women. Because of all these discombobulated relationships, he has no one to look up to, but himself. He has no parents, no god, not even a race to turn to, so he turns in on himself. Joe Christmas both wants to belong and wants to be rejected at the same time. Every time he starts to get close to some one, he forcefully pushes himself away, most often by violence. He turns in on himself, both halves of him trying to meld, to become a whole person, and it results in internal violence, which leaks out to those who get to close to him.
