“I Wrote Myself Into Being”: An Analysis of Codeswitching, Signifying, Performativity, and the Power of Literacy in Percival Everett’s James

Percival Everett’s 2024 novel James is a retelling of one of the most classic works of American literature, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the perspective of the enslaved man Jim. Although initially Everett’s novel contains some striking similarities with Twain’s plot, it eventually departs from Twain’s story significantly and meaningfully to humanize Jim’s character and allow him to deploy tactics that establish identity and agency in a society that denies his humanity. My thesis project analyzes the roles of codeswitching, signifying, and racial performativity, all methods of African American survival, resistance, and self-expression in White supremacist societies, in Everett’s James. Paradoxically, abandoning codeswitching, signifying, and performativity later in the novel leads James to increase his agency, resist the dehumanizing impact of slavery, and eventually find his family and freedom. Analyzing how codeswitching, signifying, and performativity function in the novel aids our understanding of how Everett foregrounds James’ strategic language shifts between Standard American English and the slave language to complicate and critique the construction of racial identity, deconstruct the meaning of freedom within the context of slavery, and highlight literacy as a tool for resistance, selfhood, and sharing the stories of oneself and others.