Charles Johnson - Dreamer

There is a moment when each man discovers God. For King, it is a transforming experience that shows him the way to confront the world’s evil, while Chaym’s faith is short-lived, and he becomes disillusioned by the evils of the world. How does each mans relationship to God affect what happens to him?

What are Chaym’s motivations in helping King? Is his offer to be a decoy a true gesture of self-sacrifice? Or does he covet King’s position as a great and beloved leader?

Chaym eventually succumbs to the FBI’s threats and cooperates with them out of fear, but we never learn exactly what happens to him. Do you think he betrays King? Might he be responsible for his death in some way?

Chaym is able to imitate King in all aspects except his faith in God. Does Chaym represent what King might have been without God?

Many famous figures who came to symbolize peace during their lives (King, Ghandi, Rabin, and even John Lennon) have been struck down by assassins’ bullets. Discuss the irony of such voices of reason being silenced by the violence they loathed. Do you think Dr. King would be America’s martyred symbol for Civil Rights had he not been murdered in his prime? Does his murder allow us to conduct our own kind of historical revision by letting us forget his limits as a man and leader, and focus solely on his tremendous achievements?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHARLES JOHNSON was the first black American male since Ralph Ellison to win the National Book Award for fiction, which he received for Middle Passage . His fiction has been much anthologized, and he was named in a survey conducted by the University of Southern California as one of the ten best short-story writers in America. A widely published literary critic, philosopher, cartoonist, essayist, screenwriter, and lecturer, he is one of twelve African American authors honored in an international stamp series celebrating great writers of the twentieth century. Johnson’s alma mater, Southern Illinois University, administers the Charles Johnson Award for Fiction and Poetry, a nationwide competition inaugurated in 1994 for college students. He was also awarded the MacArthur Fellowship in 1998. He is currently the S. Wilson and Grace M. Pollock Endowed Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Washington and lives in Seattle with his wife, Joan, and their two children.