“RUPTURING THE PLANE”: SIGNIFYIN(G) AT THE JUNCTURES IN ISHMAEL
REED’S MUMBO JUMBO

being A Thesis 

Presented to the Graduate Faculty
of the Fort Hays State University in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements 
for the Degree of Master of Arts
by
Michelle Webb
B.A., B.S., Fort Hays State University
https://scholars.fhsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=theses

ABSTRACT
Most readings of Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo come from a perspective that
Reed establishes a series of binaries to be dissected. Many of these critics use Jacques
Derrida’s theory of deconstruction because they assert that Reed is simply reversing the
roles of the marginalized African and the centralized white man. These implications
cover most of the major points in Reed’s work: the West vs. the East, Christianity vs.
Hoodoo, white vs. black, etc. However, this type of reading is inadequate because it is too
limiting. Reed goes beyond the binaries and beyond the Western assumption of one or the
other. He creates a kind of hybrid notion, suggesting the text contains more of a
crossroads motif than a simple inversion of dominance and oppression. Using Henry
Louis Gates, Jr.’s The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary
Criticism as a theoretical framework, I examine the protagonist, PaPa LaBas, as well as
the text Mumbo Jumbo itself because they represent the points at which Reed’s notions of
hybridity are most prominent. Cynthia Hamilton writes that which most closely
summarizes my concept: “The ‘X’ of the crossing roadbeds signals the
multidirectionality of the juncture and is simply a single instance in a boundless network
that redoubles and circles . . . and branches over the vastness of hundreds of thousands of
American miles” (237). The sense of redoubling and circling aligns with Gates’s theory
of “Signifyin(g),” and the process enables readers to go beyond the binaries to discover
the complex nature of Reed’s work.