ABSTRACT
One way to think of Jungle Fever’s social analysis would be to treat the demise of the Flipper-Angie couple as an instance of a general truth that interracial romances are doomed by antiblack racism. Jungle Fever’s advocacy of a similar economic strategy allies its political perspective with that of black nationalism. Jungle Fever’s forbidden fruit narrative illustrates how an abortive affair can play as important a role in personal development as a successful romance. One of the pronounced narrative features of Jungle Fever is the formal parallelism it sets up between Flipper’s and Angie’s lives. Jungle Fever argues that since white America cannot shed its racism, integrationism is a political strategy that will not bring blacks the equality they seek. Even as Jungle Fever portrays Flipper’s pursuit of integration into the world of white professionalism, it demonstrates futility of his striving.
