“I yam what I yam”
Erasure“I yam what I yam” is a terse declaration in Thelonious Ellison’s reflection on how far to carry his Stagg R. Leigh persona. It sounds like a claim of fixed identity, but its placement makes the claim uneasy: Ellison is considering whether to turn the persona into a public performance, then refuses that course.
Context and Occurrence
Walking toward the bay beach, Ellison wonders how far he should take the Stagg R. Leigh performance. He imagines becoming a Rhinehart, seeing himself in store windows, and putting on a fake beard and wig to appear on talk shows. The expression, set between that imagined transformation and the proposed performance, gives the moment its compact assertion of selfhood.
Performance and Refusal
The sentence does not settle the question of identity so much as sharpen it. Ellison can imagine playing the public role—doing the talk shows and performing the expected routine—but concludes that he cannot. Rather than make Stagg R. Leigh a sustained television character, he decides that the persona will remain reclusive: Mr. Leigh will speak with the editor a few more times, then disappear. The expression thus stands beside a limit, as Ellison distinguishes the identity he has fashioned from a performance he is unwilling to continue.
