The Desperate Characters in John Henry Days

In Colson Whitehead’s novel, John Henry Days, there are a series of characters who thrive off of the success and opportunity presented by the legendary John Henry. Personally, I seem to find one of the characters to be quite intriguing and notable—Pamela Street. Many of the junketeers go to Talcott because they gain their success by making “content” out of the story and that is how they make their living, however Pamela Street is quite different than the junketeers. Pamela’s father was obsessed with the story of John Henry to such an extant that he was a horrible parent and that he would, by today’s standards, most likely be considered a “freak”. Her father had a gigantic collection of memorabilia dedicated to John Henry in a small apartment. No one would come to visit and see his memorabilia, yet he still insisted on gaining a massive collection of John Henry material. When her father passed away, Pamela stored away his entire collection, however Talcott, the city that is holding the commemoration of John Henry, is trying to gain the collection. Now the interesting thing about the situation is that Pamela feels as if she cannot give up the collection, regardless of the fact that she had a practically fatherless childhood. Her father was not a good parent, and yet she cannot let go of his memory. It seems as if Pamela does not fully understand how she is to deal with the death of her father even if giving up the collection is what most people would do, or at least what would be the right or sensible decision. There is another interesting character that is somewhat similar to Pamela—Alphonse Miggs. Alphonse also suffers a life in which he is extremely distant from his family, particularly his wife. His life was so miserable that he found stamp collecting as a way to pass the time in his desperation, and yet he still strives to find something meaningful because nothing in his life, even his stamp collecting, has sufficed thus far. It seems as if many of the characters, especially the junketeers are just people who have lived in misery and only wish to find something meaningful and Whitehead uses them to brighten up the characteristics of the main characer, J..