Abstract
The paper deals with the topic of panoptical anxiety as thematically rendered by Paul Beatty in his critically acclaimed 2015 novel The Sellout. The term "Panopticon" has come to stand for the ubiquitous normalizing public gaze as theorized by Michel Foucault.
The defining aspect of this mechanism resides in the fact that a group or community is kept in check by a self-disciplining reflex which is maintained regardless of whether the presumed monitoring gaze is present or not. The panoptical principle has been a steady presence African American literature.
It has been argued that African American literature written from late 18th through mid 20th century communicated primarily to the presumed white readership, so it was panoptically induced by the so called "white gaze". And it is precisely this self-disciplining communal reflex that Paul Beatty repeatedly thematizes in his last novel.
By using what may seem to be an overblown semi-realistic hyperbole, Beatty manages to draw attention to this phenomenon while also satirizing it. The ubiquitous panopticism of the novel is then used as a tentative and fragmentary polemic with Kenneth E.
Warren's contention that African American literature as a phenomenon arose in response to specific historical circumstances (Jim Crow) and, with these historical realities no longer present, it has lost its fundamental raison d'etre.