The Birthmark of Race

Ralph Ellison names his short story “The Birthmark,” and consequently, through this highlighting of the character Willie’s birthmark, he points to a broader and more symbolic concept about the permanent significance of racial inequality.

Initially when Matt and Clara see the body, Willie’s birthmark becomes the only characteristic that they expect will conclusively identify the body as their brother’s, and thus certainly attach them to the tragic fate of this killed man. When Matt first sees the man’s face, he is still unsure whether the man is his brother: “Goddam, was this Willie? […] It can’t be Willie, he told himself. The flesh was hacked and pounded as though it had been beaten with hammers. […] Is it Willie?” (column 2). The damage done to this man’s face is so severe that Matt and Clara cannot even tell if he is the man they’ve presumably known their entire lives. They therefore turn to the birthmark as their means of identifying the man and determining whether this moment will be one of sorrow or relief.

Even when Matt looks for the birthmark, though, Clara’s and his worry should remain unresolved. Matt notices that “The flesh was bruised and torn. [The birthmark] was just below his navel, he thought. Then he gave a start: where it should have been was only a bloody mound of torn flesh and hair” (3). The narrator explicitly says that Matt saw only flesh and hair, and not the birthmark. Whether the birthmark was covered or absent is not made clear, and so the identity of this man is still uncertain. However, Matt and Clara are both completely overwhelmed by the realization that this man was not in a car accident, but instead brutally murdered. The narrator says, “Matt went weak. He felt as though he had been castrated himself. He thought he would fall when Clara stepped beside him,” and Clara screams, “These here white folks come and told us Willie was hit by a car, but didn’t no car do that to him. They lynched Willie, Matt. They done lynched our brother…” (3). Again, there is no actual confirmation that this man is definitely their brother Willie, but because they are so shocked by the brutal murder inflicted upon this man, they are thrust into an intensely sorrowful attachment to him. In this way, the man’s identity—and Matt and Clara’s consequent connection to him—is not determined by the presence or absence of the birthmark, but by him being a pitiable human who was victimized because of his race.

His race serves, then, as another sort of birthmark, in that the skin color with which he is born becomes a lasting differential between him and white individuals, and especially his white persecutors and murderers. This man received the same—and an even worse—sort of racist treatment that Matt and Clara receive from the police officer, who says, “Goddammit, I said a car hit him! […] We don’t have no lynchings in this state no more! […] “And you better remember that, nigger […] ‘Cause a car might hit you. Understand what I mean?” (4). Because of the “birthmark” that is their race, Matt, Clara, and the man have identities placed upon them by this police officer and others that suggest the three are inferior persons whose rights can be violated, and whose lives can be taken without any repercussions for the murderers. This incredible prejudice, unchecked, is as permanent as Matt, Clara, and the man’s skin color.