Introduction
Johnny Appleseed is a novel written by Joshua Whitehead exploring the theme of sexuality and the indigenous nature of people. He writes about a young man named Johny, who is seen yearning to get back to the city for the burial of his stepfather. After some time, Johny becomes a cybersex worker, taking various identities in the webcam business. Whitehead describes Johny as an ‘indigiqueer’ who tries to pull together resources to discover the meaning of life (Whitehead p. 7).
The author has showcased how hard it was for Johny to grow away from his roots. In the novel, Whitehead refers to Johny as a two-spirit who has a series of breakages shattered with glitter and dream as he tries to put together pieces of life. The word ‘two-spirit is commonly used to refer to the aspect of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) in the western heritage. However, the claim of two spirits by Joshua Whitehead is different from the western misconception as challenged in the novel’s text. By using the term ‘two spirits,’ Whitehead wanted to braid off the two worlds, that is, Johnny’s queerness and the culture surrounding him.
The Two-Spirit Character in Johny Appleseed
Two-spirit is a pan-indigenous word used towards the end of the 20th century. It covers a wide array of nations and encapsulates different cultures and identities, such as colonization and decolonization. It gives specific notions about each regional space and opens people’s minds about social and communal practices (Whitehead p. 17). The term has lost meaning after the emergence of beliefs centered on religion, which is why western culture could perceive Whitehead’s use of the term ‘two-spirit’ as one which relates to sexuality only.
The word ‘indigiqueer’ means a way of making space and identity of the land that the main character came from. In the novel, Whitehead says, “I go by both two-spirit and Indigiqueer. One to pay homage to where I come from, Winnipeg, the birthplace of two-spirit in 1990. But I also think of Indigiqueer as the forward moving momentum for two-spiritness” (Whitehead p. 23). As a result, the bringing of viciousness in the two-spirit narration shows that people may not be where they were previously under colonization and body shaming. Rather, a situation where romanticism is perceived to be a taboo topic in public.
The book, which was written in first person, targets a young audience and is open to be read by anyone; hence, the two-spirit phenomena used symbolizes the resurgence of the indigenous community. While reading about Johnny’s quest to have a specific identity in terms of sexuality, a reader can see one form of spirit (Whitehead p. 37). Additionally, when the author subjects the young man to a series of difficult life, the other spirit can be seen as a little acceptance and transformation in modernism. Therefore, the entire context of the paper can be related to the two spirits, which do not necessarily define Johnny as an LGBTQ member only.
Whitehead thinks that two-spirit is a reflection of character in different life occasions. For instance, leaving the reserve for the city show two lives, and the powerful transition in a week characterized by mental and physical damage completes the two sets of spirits for Johnny in the book. The author takes the reader through past current and past life of the young man meaning that he wanted the audience to see how Johnny struggled to make his life definite at the end. In an interview with CBC Radio in 2018, Joshua whitehead said, “A lot of people are reading him as this hyper-confident, super-suave swindling character. But I had to craft a two-spirit character who has pain but who is triumphant in that pain, shifting it into love.” (CBC Radio par. 4). This means that using the term was not to evoke the notion of LGBTQ but to plant the seed of identity through different cultural heritages.
Being two-spirit is different from the western cultural notion of queer identity. The character of Johny in the novel revolves around a young man with a raft of issues in his life whereby he makes decisions that have an unlikely outcome. Many people who read the novel have the wrong conception of what being two spirits is like. But according to the novel’s main objectives, the transformation of Johnny, which brings light at the end of the tunnels, challenges the idea of queer identity (Carter par. 6). Johny is a better part of many people who pass through a series of challenges to have shiny and glittered future. The reason is that Johny perseveres pain that shifts into love after the victorious triumph over the problems he had.
The life of Johny is a form of two split concepts of acceptance and the nature of indigenous upbringings. The author has captured explicit content of sexual activities that are centered on his stepfather Tias and other members. If Whitehead could have used the two spirit phenomena only to drive the LGBQ message, then he would not have captured the ups and downs of Johny. Therefore, the term is a conceptual representation of divided life that bears a unique outcome from what many people may not comprehend.
Whitehead’s use of two spirits shows variations that define who Johny is in the narrative. For example, at one point, the young man had to pass through a discriminative situation when he was assumed to be a thief in a store by his neighbor. Additionally, johnny experiences a racist society where he conceals his identity as queer to some youths. After all, he feels that would add to his troubles because he is indigenous. The life and times of Johnny, as showcased in the novel, do not meet a complete version of someone who is directly engaging in two spirits as a result of feminine and masculine concepts (Carter par. 5).
Alternatively, the two spirits are a call of particular struggle that relates to queer-dominant spaces which are significantly fetishizing and tokenizing. Johnny felt he needed to live a straight life that would not be characterized by strange occasions of falling prey to his father’s sexual desires. Additionally, he had sexual encounters with his girlfriend, meaning that a definite struggle was moving him from the other side of life.
There are tender economies of care that show the transition of Johnny through his mother. While the novel might have covered toxic sexuality, the young man revives toward the end, courtesy of his beliefs. His mother, at some point, dreamt of having Johhny near members of masculinist society in the indigenous community. Johhny and his friends continued to fish and ignored all the harmful imaginaries perpetuated by the men. Apart from Tias, who is Johnny’s only source of queer identity, other characters, such as Jordan and Peggy, are centered on showing his association with people who help him come through different situations (Whitehead p. 82).
Johnny represents an indigenous people in the society through a series of subjects mentioned in the book. People of that kind are often disregarded as not woke; hence, Johhny’s pursuit of being civilized through transitions in the book is a symbol of two spirits; one for the indigenous nature and the other for the modernized culture.
Among many features that define Johhny, kinship is evident through his love triangle with his best friend, stepfather, and Jordan. At some point, the author highlighted the complexity of the intimate nature. At this point, Johhny feels what is referred to as a ‘wave of shame’ for being linked with two spirits. In this aspect, the author showcases Johnny’s varying emotions due to being subjected to new lives in the city (Whitehead p. 54). However, Johnny does not split from his friend’s circle because he protects those close to her. In a normal context of two spirits in any western culture, a person who is queer chooses to become either gay or lesbian, but that is not what Johnny resolves to at the end of the story. Therefore, the two-spirit projection in the story shows acceptance of change through troubles and challenges along the way. By using the term, Whitehead meant the strength of indigenous kinship celebrated in traumatic and sexist perspectives.
By introducing the two spirit terms to the reader, Whitehead planned to emphasize the significance of queer identity in disseminating healthy gender associations within the contemporary world. That is why the reader notices that Johnny’s mother was harsh on him but had positive ties with all the family members (Whitehead p. 33). The idea is not to show the conflict in society whenever members of the LGBTQ community are mentioned. Whitehead wanted to tell society that having a contentious form of sexual identity was one way of defining the character of acceptance. Unlike today, queer people were never discriminated against as they were seen as a transitional model of identifying the real world. For example, colonization was seen as a way of instilling gender identities in native lands (Whitehead p. 72). Thus, the use of a two-spirit term does not seek to raise the alarm on the conflict between these groups but rather a blended life of acceptance and understanding of human nature.
Conclusion
The novel Johnny’s Appleseed has defined the cultural and sexual identity and the community’s perception of human social and physical natures. Joshua Whitehead wanted to reveal human beings’ cultural identity and sexual beliefs. Johhny’s suffering while trying to balance the two lives was proof that he completed the two-spirit, that is, his indigenous and sexual spaces. The two phenomena are largely used to identify Johhny and the society he lived in. when the reader sees the two projections, they can easily divert their attention from the western notion of the LGBTQ community to the new identity of indigenous and sexual features.
Acceptance and transition are key to revealing the same hence, from the writer’s point of view, incorporating all those themes was necessary to ensure readers do not perceive the matter from a single point. Thus, when reading through the book, it is important to pay attention so that the contentious part of the term ‘two-spirit’ does not end up conflicting with the writer’s message and what appears to be a reality to many.
Works Cited
Carter, Sue. “Author Joshua Whitehead on Jonny Appleseed, His Coming-of-Age Tale.” Thestar.com, Toronto Star, 2018. Web.
CBC Radio. “Joshua Whitehead Explores Indigiqueer, and Two-Spirit Culture in His Canada Reads Contending Novel | CBC Radio.” CBC News, CBC/Radio Canada. 2021. Web.
Whitehead, Joshua. Jonny Appleseed. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018.