A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich, Alice Childress

04/09/2007

Problem Novel        Individuality vs. Responsibility to Others        Identity/Subjectivity

Problem Novel: A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich is a classic example of a problem novel, which deals with a contemporary problem, but doesn't  necessarily offer any solutions. Instead, Hero raises as many questions as it answers, in part because we see Benji's drug addiction from multiple points of view. Each member of his family has a different take on Benji's drug addiction and how to solve it. His grandmother believes her grandson ultimately suffers from a spiritual sickness that can only be cured by Jesus. Benji's mother, at the urging of his grandmother, takes him to a spiritual advisor to chase the devil out of him in order to cure his addiction. Both Benji's mother and Butler want him in a substance abuse program, but aren't sure how to deal with him when he gets out since this program alone is not enough to cure an addiction. The addict must have the willpower to overcome dependency as well as have the moral courage to see himself as ultimately responsible for his problem. At first, Butler and Rose both believe that Benji's problem is rooted in his biological father's rejection of him, and his refusal to let Butler be a father figure to him. But ultimately, Butler is not enough to save Benji. While Butler can save Benji from falling off of the roof, he is not cured when in order to calm his nerves from the withdrawal, he writes 100 times on a piece of paper "Butler is my father" and leaves it in Butler's overcoat for him to find. Benji tells Butler that he can overcome his addiction if only someone will believe him, which puts the responsibility for his wellness on others. But Butler disagrees, telling his stepson to "be [his] own man, the supervisor of [his] veins, the night watchman and day shift foreman in charge-a [his] own affairs" (119-20). This is the turning point in the novel, which ends with Butler standing on the street corner to meet Benji and walk him to his outpatient program. We clearly see that Butler believes in Benji, but what is yet to be seen is whether or not Benji believes in himself enough to follow through.

Hero also discusses drug addiction as something larger than the addict. The addict doesn't acquire his/her habit in a vacuum. There has to be a supplier. For Benji, his drug addiction is also a consequence of poverty (thought of course, not all addicts are poor). Benji's principal ruminates on the pernicious effects of poverty which he sees as more than just a lack of money. "Poverty is as complicated as high finance," leading its victims to adopt various coping mechanisms to "continue to stand up under humiliation and abuse" (56). Some buy expensive clothes they can't afford to hide their lack of material wealth from the world and from themselves, others exploit their impoverished neighbors, seeing them as easy marks since they police don't really care what happens to any of them, and that exploitation leads to selling drugs to others desperate for a mental way out of poverty.

Nigeria Greene believes that drug addition, along with many of the other problems he sees around him, is due to racism. He thinks that "it's a wonder that every Black person in the U. S. of A. hasn't gone stark, ravin from racism . . . and the hurtin its put on us" (41). To counteract this hurt, Nigeria has decided to teach black kids, to "be the Black Messiah of the classroom" who will "light the way with Blackness" (44). But it is not easy to be the Black Messiah of the classroom. Other teachers, both black and white, complain about his students having a chip on their shoulder after being exposed to Nigeria's teaching. Bernard Cohen questions whether or not "it's healthy for kids to learn nothing but Black history, Black supremacy, and Black power," (35) which is what he sees Nigeria as trying to teach to his students. In Bernard's mind, what he sees as a steady diet of Afro-entrism doesn't so much empower them as it causes them to have more difficulty dealing with the majority culture.

While the novel doesn't squarely name any one cause of Benji's addiction, it does indicate his problem is due to a failure to be content with himself or to see himself as able to do better. Butler has made peace with his own life. While he has to work at something he doesn't like, he has few wants--"a place where you can close the door and shut the people-eaters out of your life . . . a music box with a good sound, a name-brand bottle that can be tasted now and then, food in the box, and a glad rag or two to wear when you want to make a extra-nice appearance" (20-21). And Benji's best friend Jimmie-Lee Powell has opted to not even take drugs because he's "got somethin else for a dollar to do" and getting high is not something he really wants to do because his "brain is into a lotta things" and he doesn't want to get caught off guard in "this bad-ass wilderness" (23).

Individuality vs. Responsibility to Others: Benji has to recognize how his behavior has affected others in his life. Butler and Rose nearly break up over Benji's behavior. Butler comments in the beginning of the novel that with Benji in the house, you "can't put down nothin [you] hope to pick up again cause now [Benji's] into stealing" and "his own relatives are the easiest to rip off, cause [they] won't throw his behind in jail like strangers would" (16).

Cohen and Nigeria both spar about who is responsible for caring for kids like Benji, and what caused his addiction in the first place. When Benji comes to class clearly under the influence, Cohen doesn't want to turn him in because he believes that no good will come of it: "The parents get upset, the principal gets upset, the kid feels betrayed" (48). Nigeria, on the other hand, believes that they have the responsibility to turn Benji in regardless, because if they don't, he could die (48). And he sees all adults as uniquely responsible for the fates of children. Nigeria thinks that he should tell his students that "under adult supervision you have become a breed of junkies and acid trippers, muggers, purse snatchers, and trust-no-one-over-thirtyites. You right not to trust no one over thirty, we're makin millions out of your slave bodies, makin big profits from openin  your veins and makin small profits tryin to close them shut again. Yall better learn to defend yourself" (99).

Walter the pusher particularly feels no responsibility to others, but instead justifies selling drugs by saying that people choose to become junkies, and he even does a valuable public service when he tells his customers that "skag blows health and mind" (59). Furthermore, if he didn't supply the drug addicts in his neighborhood, they would just go somewhere else to get a fix. He also blames the junkie's parents for improper supervision of their children: "If I had me a kid, his Black ass would be home in bed at night, in the day he'd be in school, and I'd trouble myself to see to it, dig? I wouldn't be shufflin no soft-shoe and callin for the thorities!" (60-61). Walter also discusses to what degree he doesn't conduct his business in a vacuum, but is instead aided and abetted by a much larger system. He has to pay off the police, who are willing to take bribes to turn their heads the other way, in order to continue doing business, and "the crackers who own the world and all what's in it . . . haulin horse into the States by the ton . . .  ain't most of it gettin here in nobody's suitcase, or sewed up in a dollbaby" (61). Later, Nigeria echoes this idea about wealthy white interests bringing drugs into the United States when he talks to Butler about Benji's addiction (106), to which Butler replies "Why we gotta shove it into the nation's arm? Black cats pushin what whitey moves in. If we don't touch it, it'll lay there, right?" (106).

While Walter is certainly passing the buck regarding his own complicity in people destroying themselves, he also has a point about how the drugs get into the country in the first place. Some very powerful interests smuggle illegal drugs into the United States. But Walter's arguments that he is not responsible for the fates of people addicted to heroin quickly deconstruct themselves by the end of his rant, when he declares that "if I had my way bout it, I wouldn't be related to a Black-ass nigga on this earth. All them that wanta die let em put a five in my pocket, and I'll help em to slowly make it on outta here . . .  Less of them makes more room for me! The hell with the junkie, the wino, the capitalist, the welfare checks, the world . . . yeah, and fuck you too!" (63-64).

Butler too has to decide to what degree he is responsible for Benji, who is not his son, and who deeply resents his presence in the family and does all he can to drive him off. When he moves downstairs with Miss Emma Dudley after Benji steals his clothes, Rose accuses Butler of running off on her daughter. When he literally has Benji's fate in his hands, however, Butler decides that he has to take responsibility. When Benji nearly falls to his death and Butler is holding his hands so he doesn't go over the edge, Benji begs Butler to just let him drop, and let him die (109), and Butler thinks to himself that his stepson was just "givin [him] a chance to kill him." (109). And while Butler confesses that he did want Benji out of the way, he doesn't want the boy dead, and furthermore, he'll "die if [he loses] him" (109).

Identity/Subjectivity: Benji is also trying to sort out who he is, and in doing so, he often displays the self-centered attitude characteristic of adolescents. The novel begins with Benji's emphatic declaration that he is no longer a child because he sees himself as completely on his own. For Benji, to be a child is to be held back in life, and also to be victimized by people like sexual predators ("a chile can get snatch in the dark and get his behind parts messed up by some weirdoes" [9-10]). But to his way of thinking, he is now no longer a child because he is on his own, "too big for relatives to be holdin your hand like when you was three, four, and five" (9). And Benji feels abandoned. He sees Butler as having stolen his mother from him, and doesn't understand her need for a man in her life at her age, or why she can't just be content to be his mother. And when the story opens, he feels betrayed by Nigeria Greene, "who hipped Cohen and the principal" to his drug problem, and who in turn "notify my Gramma and she blabbin it all to my mother and Butler, and then they jumpin in it" (15). Furthermore, Benji works to make his feelings of abandonment into a self fulfilling prophecy. He pushes away his friends and family instead of at least listening to them. He is particularly hard on Butler, telling him that he's "just a maintenance man and . . . a hero ain't nothin' but a sandwich–so don't strain yourself trying to prove nothin" (74).

Yet for all of his desire to push people away from him, Benji really wants to be close to someone. After he has just pushed Butler and his mother away when they try to be understanding with him after he comes home from detox, he goes into the bathroom and prays for God to send him a friend, "someone to be crazy bout me" (75).

At first, Benji won't accept that he is an addict, but sees the designation as further proof that people are out to get him. He denies that he's stealing from his family. He's just borrowing money and things from them which he fully intends to pay back, and would have if his friend Jimmy Lee would have given Benji money that he thought was his due when Jimmy Lee was supposed to get a gift of cash from his uncle. Instead, he sees his drug addiction as proof that he is no longer a child, because now he can  do what he wants to. Benji doesn't think its fair that he is called a dope fiend by social workers and his family since they all seem to have their addictions too. He doesn't, for example, call his grandmother a coffee fiend or a church fiend (10).

But eventually, Benji has to accept that he is an addict, and furthermore, he has to acknowledge the relationship he has with his family and friends who care for him. The social worker tells Butler that Benji needs "some male hero figure he can identify with" in order to construct his own identity, and then proceeds to show Butler a list of books about Black history, as well as tells him about black movie stars and sports figures, indicating that he should take Benji to more ball games and movies so he can see some heroes. Butler objects the social worker's line of reasoning. These so called celebrity heroes are unable to take care of themselves. But most importantly, Butler sees himself as a fitting hero for Benji for the simple reason that he faces the world every morning "with a clear head and a heavy heart" and he "supports three adults, one child and the United States' government" on his salary "and can't claim any of em for tax exemptions" (125). This speech demonstrates to what degree Butler has a healthy identity, and is therefore a fitting role model for Benji.