The Intuitionist

How do elevators and elevation operate as symbols in the book? How do they function in Whitehead’s broader allegory about race in America?

Bringing in outside research, why is racial uplift theory controversial in the 21st century? What are the limitations to this approach toward securing racial equality? For reference, read this Brookings Institute article from Professor Christopher H. Foreman, Jr: (https://www.brookings.edu/articles/black-america-the-road-to-racial-uplift).

What is the book’s attitude toward corporate entities and capitalism writ large? Within the world of the novel, is capitalism portrayed as an effective vehicle for social advancement, particularly for Black Americans? Pointing to specific events and passages in the book, why might Whitehead be skeptical of this premise?

Discuss how W.E.B. Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness manifests in the narrative. Pay close attention to this concept with respect to the following characters: Lila Mae, Fulton, Pompey, and Natchez. How are their approaches to this phenomenon similar? How are they different?

How does “Black irony” operate in the text? Identify scenes of three characters laughing—Lila Mae, Fulton, and Pompey—and explain how this fits into the notion that historical and personal trauma may be reclaimed through laughter.

What does it mean that Lila Mae develops a “new literacy” while reading Fulton’s diaries after she discovers his racial identity? And what role does literacy play in narratives of Black advancement—before the Civil War, during and after Reconstruction, and at the turn of the 21st century when Whitehead wrote The Intuitionist?

How does Whitehead use the tropes and conventions of detective novels to tell his story? How does he subvert many of these tropes? What effect does that subversion have on conveying the author’s themes?

What are the implications of the revelation that the Fanny Briggs crash was nothing more than a “catastrophic accident”? Why is this a more devastating cause to Lila Mae than, say, sabotage or even inspector error? And given the book’s central allegory in which elevation is a metaphor for racial uplift, how does this revelation play into the book’s broader themes?