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The Consent of the Governed in Ishmael Reed's The Freelance Pallbearers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Michael Collins
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Abstract

The critical ingredient of American democracy—the consent of the governed—is placed under the microscope in Ishmael Reed's The Freelance Pallbearers and his related works. Reed's portrait of the consent of the governed—and of the ways in which it is undermined—allows us to discern the structure of what medical and legal thinkers call informed consent: agreement that is the fruit of neither force, fraud, nor incapacity. Reed's portrayal of battles for and against consent, in fact, allows us to theorize that a key distinction between more and less democratic societies is the sort of “consent horizon” within which their citizens operate.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 123 , Issue 2 , March 2008 , pp. 422 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by The Modern Language Association of America

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