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“Shiny”
A mysterious, cultured, incredibly wealthy man who becomes the narrator’s “friend” or “employer” (depending on the context) after watching him play at the “Club.” The millionaire asks the narrator to play for his private parties and then brings him to Europe, where they spend more than a year. When the narrator decides to return to the United States to compile black folk music, the millionaire argues that he will not be taken seriously and would be “foolish” to try to change white Americans’ prejudice. Even though he is almost always emotionally distant and cannot convince the narrator to stay in Europe, the millionaire is nevertheless his closest friend.
The Millionaire Quotes in Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man quotes below are all either spoken by The Millionaire or refer to The Millionaire. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 9 Quotes
He seated himself at the piano, and, taking the theme of my ragtime, played it through first in straight chords; then varied and developed it through every known musical form. I sat amazed. I had been turning classic music into ragtime, a comparatively easy task; and this man had taken ragtime and made it classic. The thought came across me like a flash—It can be done, why can't I do it? From that moment my mind was made up. I clearly saw the way of carrying out the ambition I had formed when a boy.
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When the narrator and the millionaire visit Berlin, they end up at a party full of musicians. After the narrator performs ragtime, another one of the guests immediately inverts the narrator’s signature move by turning ragtime into classical form. This inspires the narrator to pursue the project that takes him back to the United States: collecting as-yet-unknown vernacular black music, translating it into white classical music, and publishing it under his own name. Just like when performing for the millionaire led the narrator to value ragtime for its effect on white audiences, here the narrator begins to conceive his potential Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error.
“My boy, you are by blood, by appearance, by education, and by tastes a white man. Now, why do you want to throw your life away amidst the poverty and ignorance, in the hopeless struggle, of the black people of the United States? Then look at the terrible handicap you are placing on yourself by going home and working as a Negro composer; you can never be able to get the hearing for your work which it might deserve. I doubt that even a white musician of recognized ability could succeed there by working on the theory that American music should be based on Negro themes. Music is a universal art; anybody's music belongs to everybody; you can't limit it to race or country. Now, if you want to become a composer, why not stay right here in Europe?”
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When the narrator reveals his plans to return to the United States and translate black music into classical form for a broad audience, the millionaire protests: he thinks that the narrator is sacrificing his individual success and comfort for a dream that will inevitably be blocked by prejudice. Because he sees the narrator as having essentially freed himself of his racial identity, the millionaire wonders why the narrator would return to the black community he has seemingly escaped, sacrificing his independence in order to advance the public perception of black music—ironically, the narrator actually sees himself as pursuing his own Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam doloremque eum. Animi
I could see, in spite of the absolute selfishness upon which it was based, that there was reason and common sense in [his argument]. I began to analyze my own motives, and found that they, too, were very largely mixed with selfishness. Was it more a desire to help those I considered my people or more a desire to distinguish myself, which was leading me back to the United States? That is a question I have never definitely answered.
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In deciding whether to remain in Europe or return to the United States, the narrator feels caught between two desires: the selfish desires to live comfortably amidst white society and distinguish himself as an artist, and the ostensibly selfless desire to help “my people,” which he soon realizes his music is unlikely to do. He sees this tension between self-interest and self-sacrifice as a common predicament for educated black Americans, but it is in fact one shared by everyone—although whites seldom acknowledge or confront their potential to do anything about structural racism. In one sense, the narrator realizes that his Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde eni
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The Millionaire Character Timeline in Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
The timeline below shows where the character The Millionaire appears in Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 8
...over five dollars every night he came. One night, the man (later referred to as the millionaire ) called him over and offered a job playing for a dinner party at his...
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...and, afterward, the guests enthusiastically declared him “the most unique entertainment they had ‘ever’ enjoyed.” The millionaire gave him 20 dollars and offered to hire him for the future, so long as...
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...The man kept shooting; the narrator ran outside and walked frantically until he ran into the millionaire in a cab. He explained what happened and his employer decided to take him, instead...
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Chapter 9
...the narrator only in his broken high school French). The next day, they went shopping— the millionaire bought the narrator extravagant clothes, treating him “as an equal, not as a servant” and...
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When he did not know the millionaire ’s whereabouts, the narrator spent his days wandering around and his nights taking language lessons—he...
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Eventually, the narrator’s “benefactor,” the millionaire , declared that they were leaving Paris. The narrator notes that he must have enjoyed...
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...yearned to go back to the United States, the narrator realized he needed to leave his millionaire , whom he loved dearly—but who was clearly only using him to occupy “all in...
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This was the first time that the millionaire had ever mentioned race—it turned out that “he was a man entirely free from prejudice,...
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Neither of them, the millionaire believed, could do anything about “their wrongs,” so the narrator “would be foolish to unnecessarily...
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The narrator was surprised and felt paralyzed, seeing the sense in the millionaire ’s argument “in spite of the absolute selfishness upon which it was based.” He wondered...
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