Term Paper on Mama Black Widow By Iceberg
Slim
Homosexuality is a social illness and should be dealt with as a disease. It
leads to conflicts and tensions within the society destroying the family system.
The author of the book, Robert Beck, a.k.a. Iceberg Slim, is the best-known pimp
of all time. He was born in 1918 in the Southside of Chicago. His life is also
seen involved in the underworld that was to shape his life. His novel has the
sense of reality through his own personal experiences. He eventually left the
pimping game after his third stretch in jail and began to write. He published
five novels, one collection of essays and most famously his autobiography, Pimp.
Iceberg Slim has shown the rawest and bleakest visions of urban America. His
work has come to be regarded as the epitome of street fiction jus as does his
fiction Mama Black Widow.
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This book Mama Black Widow by Iceberg Slim deals with the tragic drag queen Otis
Tilson. Everybody knows the slanginess of the drags but one should not hurry and
jump to the conclusion that this book is all about homosexuals. It also deals
with how homosexuals in the black community are created. The book delves in
depth into the creation and development of homosexual practices and retains the
reader’s interest to the end of the book. It can also be treated as a social
insight into one of the social issues i.e. the ghetto life and the role of slums
in the promotion of homosexuality. The book deals with an old but still very
serious issue within the black community nationwide. The author argues that it
was the system designed by the man himself for the stoppage of rising aids that
resulted in increasing trend to homosexuality.
There is a conviction in the book for the origination of homosexuality from
poverty as through the ghetto life. The book also blames the poverty as a reason
for the generation of homosexuality and the ghetto life. As the smile comes in
when the knowledge of money is obtained.
“His face tightened, then he grinned and said, `I'm glad to hear you got some
bread, baby. Ain't no use to blow it since I got a pad. You gonna' think you in
a Gold Coast crib when I turn you on. Now git out of the car, pretty butt, so I
can bust that year cherry you got wide open.”
The book deals with homosexual creating system that was designed to break the
black man and woman and Otis has been shown as another man victimized by this
system. Otis was molested by a deacon who raped him. He recalls in the book how
his dad was a proud reverend who had moved the family to the town. The book is
essentially a story of the ghetto life exemplified by the main character of Otis
Tilson, a schizophrenic and aging drag queen. Mama Black Widow is the nickname
of Otis Tilson. The mother of Otis had a dominating presence in the story. She
suffered in her early life and went through bigotry and abuses the rest of her
life. It was these sentiments that shaped her later behavior with others around
her. Her behavior resulted in devastating consequences and inflicted trouble and
poison on others. Mama Black Widow is essentially a street fiction that is very
intense in its feelings and the characters it depicts.
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The Observer has remarked Iceberg Slim as "The King of the Ghetto." In this
fiction as well Slim has captured the reality within his literary style.
Throughout the book and in each and every small detail Slim has been very
relevant and realistic. Otis Tilson has been the narrator of this fiction. He is
the main character of the book. The image as portrayed by the drag queen has
been that of symbolizing. The main reason for the resemblance is the oozing of
sexuality in these clothes. There is similarity in the dirty work of
homosexuality and the dirtiness portrayed by these clothes. Otis was in a bar
when a wooer approached him and leaves with him in spite of the opposite advise
of friends. The result of the wrong decision was also very bad when Otis
recounts,
“He kicked me in the butt and shouted, `You better git up, freak. I'm gonna'
stomp your half white ass into the ground.”
The rest of the book is centered on the author's use of drag clothing as an
image, which becomes associated with Otis Tilson's character and a typical of
homosexuals. The image of Otis has been depicted through the drag clothing. The
drags have been symbolized with the character of Otis who has been shown as a
comely and tragic black queen adrift with his brothers and sisters in the dark
ghetto world of pimpdom and violent crime. There is violence and dirty language
in the book. Niggers are abused in the utmost dirty words possible. There is no
regard for humanity and morality sleeps and feels ashamed upon this realization
of homosexuality. Slim tells this story in the narrator’s own language of the
gut-level of the homosexual underworld. It was an urban hell that Otis lives in
as he recalls,
“He was silhouetted against the dark careening sky like a gigantic creature from
a horror movie. He stooped and picked me up and slung me across his shoulder
like a sack of potatoes. I sobbed, `Let me go. What are you going to do?' He
laughed and stabbed stiff fingers into my crotch. I almost fainted from the
shock as I bit the back of his topcoat to keep from screaming”
Mama Black Widow is extremely attractive to the readers for two main reasons. It
is a vivid recounting of a Black family's relocation from rural Mississippi to
Chicago during the Great Migration of the 1920s. The father of the family
brought the family to the new place and it was then that the trouble in the
family started. Another interesting feature of this book has been the colorful
portrayal of Chicago's homosexual underworld in the 1940s and 1950s. There are
dark allies and the darker intentions of the people. The book is especially a
read for knowing the difference in the behavior of white man with white and the
black termed as the dirty nigger. The nightclubs and the dirty vans and the
dirty smell of human sins can all be found in this book. The dark underground
life of the black homosexual community has been portrayed in real sense by Slim.
Another incident when the respite for the blacks has been shown is
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“I felt like crying in relief. I was so sure that I was going to escape. I
looked up into the casual eyes of an old black man on a tall stool near the door
looking toward the alley. Beyond the old doorman I heard cursing and the rattle
of dice and the clink of silver money. I heard pounding steps and then very
close the same loud voice, `You black sonuvabitch, put that white woman down and
raise your hands.’”
Slim has dealt with the subject of underground black community life. The story
is intriguing and the author treats homosexuality as an illness. He casts the
gay character of Otis, in view of their numerous misfortunes, as objects of
sympathy. The book states that Tilson's homosexuality is the result of childhood
molestation and his overbearing mother.
There are many relative subplots within the novel each depicting the story of
the harms inflicted by the overall society’s neglect. The book gives accounts of
the promiscuous preacher raping Otis and interracial dating within the
community. There are niggers fighting the white and raping the white women. The
blacks are considered as unspeakably dirty people within a typical white
community. Another subplot is that of the mother of Otis. His mother also tries
to molest and pimp her own daughter and thus the whole book deals everything
from the homosexual perspective. With the progress of the novel it seems as if
Slim is loosing his interest in his characters, choosing to kill them at his
convenience. The loss of characters feels as if one leaves someone after having
a fuck or two. The characters are raped in the novel and deliberately killed
later on to choose some other interesting character.
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