Class, Identity, and Social Mobility: A Neoliberalist Analysis of The Sellout (2015) by Paul Beatty

Abstract

This research paper aims to analyze the narratives of Paul Beatty’s satirical novel The Sellout (2015). This study analyzes the novel’s insights about the context and factors such as class, identity, and neo-liberalist theory. The implications of Beatty’s novel are explained here, referring to how the author offers and questions the possibility of the protagonist being able to restore segregation and slavery in an area of Los Angeles. It is posited in this paper that Beatty uses satire to analyze and condemn the ideas of neoliberal self-making, meritocracy, and racism. The work provides an insight into how the novel subverts the notion of selling out in a capitalist culture that commodifies even individual selves. In order to make this argument, this paper will analyze how Beatty portrays the protagonist as behaving paradoxically, working to save his community through racist institutions but simultaneously contributing to their perpetuation. These conclusions point to the erasure of neoliberalism’s failure to address race and racism and mainstream Blackness in the current American society in The Sellout.