Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison: Conflicting Masculinities
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Invisible Man: Somebody's Protest Novel Thomas A
Masthead Logo The Iowa Review Volume 1 Article 29 Issue 2 Spring 1970 Invisible Man: Somebody's Protest Novel Thomas A. Vogler Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Vogler, Thomas A.. "Invisible Man: Somebody's Protest Novel." The Iowa Review 1.2 (1970): 64-82. Web. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.1062 This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The oI wa Review by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Invisible Man: Somebody's Protest Novel Thomas A. Vogler a This simply because I had notion it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz at time I did not understand. He was a me. I whom the see?you just word for see did not the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do ? you see the story? Do you see anything? Conrad can see . Oh say you .? (National Anthem) a With Hemingway and Faulkner both dead, this is not time of recognized liter are ary giants. The public, and critics too, too easily preoccupied with literary giantism, with finding the next heir to the vacated throne. Publishers want their books to and are not timid about claims. Readers want to feel sell, very making that what are is what to be in terms that can they reading they ought reading, be reached from the of a historical Our contem only vantage point perspective. -
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project
preciate it if you could find it for me.5 I am happy to say that I have read most of zg Dec Gandhi’s works and I have most of them in my library. ‘959 Incidentally, I have written a book entitled Stride Toward Freedom. One of the chapters is devoted to my pilgrimage to nonviolence. Here I try to show the Gand- hian influence in my thinking. I regret that I sent my last copy out a few days ago. If you are interested, however, you may secure a copy from Harper and Brothers. It was published in September, 1958. I will highly appreciate your comments. In answer to your question concerning China, I definitely feel that it should be admitted to the United Nations. We will never have an effective United Nations so long as the largest nation in the world is not in it. Thanks again for your kind letter, and I hope for you a joyous Christmas sea- son and a blessed new year. Yours very truly, Martin L. King, Jr. (Dictated, but not personally signed by Dr. King.) TLc. MLKP-MBU: Box 72. 3. Gandhi, Gandhi’s Letters to a Disciple (New York: Harper, 1950). In a 2 November 1960letter to King, Teek-Frank indicated that she had learned that the book was out of print but offered to lend him her copy the next time he visited New York. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project To Langston Hughes 29 December 1959 Montgomery, Ala. King thanks Hughes for contributing a poem to A. -
Unraveling Native Son: Propagating Communism) Racial Hatred) Societal Change Or None of the Above??
IUSB Graduate Journal Ill 1 Unraveling Native Son: Propagating Communism) Racial Hatred) Societal Change or None of the Above?? by:jacqueline Becker Department of English ABSTRACT: This paper explores the many different ways in which Communism is portrayed within Richard Wright's novel Native Son. It also seeks to illustrate that regardless of the reasoning behind the conflicted portrayal of Communism, within the text, it does serve a vital purpose, and that is to illustrate to the reader that there is no easy answer or solution for the problems facing society. Bigger and his actions cannot be simply dismissed as a product of a damaged society, nor can Communism be seen as an all-encompassing saving grace that will fix all of societies woes. Instead, this novel, seeks to illustrate the type of people that can be produced in a society divided by racial class lines. It shows what can happen when one oppressed group feels as though they have no power over their own lives. I have attempted to illustrate that what Wright ultimately achieved, through his novel Native Son, is to illuminate to readers of the time that a serious problem existed within their society, specifically in Chicago within the "Black Belt" and that the solution lies not with one social group or political party, not through senseless violence, but rather through changes in policy. ~Research~ 2 lll Jacqueline Becker Unraveling Native Son: Propagating Communism) Racial Hatred) Societal Change or None of the Above?? ichard Wright's novel, Native Son, presents Communism in many different lights. On the one hand, the pushy nature R of Jan and Mary, two white characters trying to share their beliefs about an equal society under Communism, by forcing Bigger, the black protagonist, to dine and drink with them, is ultimately what leads to Mary's death. -
How Bigger Was Born Anew
Fall 2020 29 ow Bier as Born new datation Reuration and Double Consciousness in Nambi E elle’s Native Son Isaiah Matthew Wooden This essay analyzes Nambi E. Kelley’s stage adaptation of Native Son to consider the ways tt Aicn Aeicn is itlie by n constitte to cts o etion t sharpens particular focus on how Kelley reinvigorates Wright’s novel’s searing social and cil cities by ctiely ein te oisin etpo o oble consciosness n iin ne o, enin, n se to te etpo, elleys Native Son extends the debates about “the problem of the color line” that Du Bois’s writing helped engender at te beinnin o te tentiet centy into te tentyst n, in so oin, opens citicl space to reckon with the persistent and pernicious problem of anti-Black racism. ewords adaptation, refguration, double consciousness, Native Son, Nambi E. Kelley This essay takes as a central point of departure the claim that African American drama is vitalized by and, indeed, constituted through acts of refguration. It is such acts that endow the remarkably capacious genre with any sense or semblance of coherence. Retion is notably a word with multiple signifcations. It calls to mind processes of representation and recalculation. It also points to matters of meaning-making and modifcation. The pref re does important work here, suggesting change, alteration, or even improvement. For the purposes of this essay, I use etion to refer to the strategies, practices, methods, and techniques that African American dramatists deploy to transform or give new meaning to certain ideas, concepts, artifacts, and histories, thereby opening up fresh interpretive and defnitional possibilities and, when appropriate, prompting much-needed reckonings. -
Unreading Modernism: Richard Wright's Literary Journalism
59 Unreading Modernism: Richard Wright’s Literary Journalism William Dow American University of Paris, France Université Paris-Est Richard Wright’s journalism has been largely unexamined by Wright scholars. He has never been studied as a literary journalist nor placed in an African American tradition of journalism or literary journalism. And yet his journalism is infused with qualities that put him firmly in line with other African Americans who are remembered today primarily as writers of fiction, poetry, or plays but who nevertheless wrote liter- ary journalism. Like most of those writers, Wright produced a kind of African American literary journalism that has as its primary objective a change of social policy or order while it also clearly demonstrates new expressive and stylistic forms. This essay focuses on works that best re- veal Wright as a heretofore unrecognized literary journalist: 12 Million Black Voices (1940) and a selection of his exile writings: Black Power: A Record of Reactions in a Land of Pathos, (1954), The Color Cur- tain: A Report on the Bandung Conference (1956), and Pagan Spain (1957). It demonstrates the usefulness of literary journalistic forms to Wright as an African American writer and global humanitarian and also shows how Wright, while advancing his aesthetic aims, repurposed traditional journalism through what I’m calling his “transnational mod- ernism” in order to promote a political solidarity with oppressed people around the world. Literary Journalism Studies Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 2013 60 Literary Journalism -
Publishing Blackness: Textual Constructions of Race Since 1850
0/-*/&4637&: *ODPMMBCPSBUJPOXJUI6OHMVFJU XFIBWFTFUVQBTVSWFZ POMZUFORVFTUJPOT UP MFBSONPSFBCPVUIPXPQFOBDDFTTFCPPLTBSFEJTDPWFSFEBOEVTFE 8FSFBMMZWBMVFZPVSQBSUJDJQBUJPOQMFBTFUBLFQBSU $-*$,)&3& "OFMFDUSPOJDWFSTJPOPGUIJTCPPLJTGSFFMZBWBJMBCMF UIBOLTUP UIFTVQQPSUPGMJCSBSJFTXPSLJOHXJUI,OPXMFEHF6OMBUDIFE ,6JTBDPMMBCPSBUJWFJOJUJBUJWFEFTJHOFEUPNBLFIJHIRVBMJUZ CPPLT0QFO"DDFTTGPSUIFQVCMJDHPPE publishing blackness publishing blackness Textual Constructions of Race Since 1850 George Hutchinson and John K. Young, editors The University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2013 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid- free paper 2016 2015 2014 2013 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Publishing blackness : textual constructions of race since 1850 / George Hutchinson and John Young, editiors. pages cm — (Editorial theory and literary criticism) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 0- 472- 11863- 2 (hardback) — ISBN (invalid) 978- 0- 472- 02892- 4 (e- book) 1. American literature— African American authors— History and criticism— Theory, etc. 2. Criticism, Textual. 3. American literature— African American authors— Publishing— History. 4. Literature publishing— Political aspects— United States— History. 5. African Americans— Intellectual life. 6. African Americans in literature. I. Hutchinson, George, 1953– editor of compilation. II. Young, John K. (John Kevin), 1968– editor of compilation PS153.N5P83 2012 810.9'896073— dc23 2012042607 acknowledgments Publishing Blackness has passed through several potential versions before settling in its current form. -
A Mediagraphy Relating to the Black Man
racumEN7 RESUME ED 033 943 IE 001 593 AUTHOR Parker, James E., CcmF. TITLE A Eediagraphy Relating to the Flack Man. INSTITUTION North Carclina Coll., Durham. Pub Date May 69 Note 82F. EDRS Price EDRS Price MF-$0.50 BC Not Available from EDRS. Descriptors African Culture, African Histcry, *Instructional Materials, *Mass Media, *Negro Culture, *Negro Histcry, Negro leadership, *Negro Literature, Negro Ycuth, Racial Eiscriminaticn, Slavery Abstract Media dealing with the Black man--his history, art, problems, and aspirations--are listed under 10 headings:(1) disc reccrdings,(2) filmstrips and multimedia kits, (3) microfilms, (4) motion pictures, (5) pictures, Fcsters and charts,(6) reprints,(7) slides, (8) tape reccrdings, (9) telecourses (kinesccFes and videotapes), and (10) transparencies. Rentalcr purchase costs of the materials are usually included, andsources and addresses where materials may be obtainedare appended. [Not available in hard cecy due tc marginal legibility of original dccument.] (JM) MEDIA Relatingto THE BLACKMAN by James E. Parker U.). IMPARIMUll OF !ULM,tOUGAI1011 &WINE OfFKE OF EDUCATION PeN THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON 02 ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS Ci STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION re% POSITION OR POLICY. O1 14.1 A MEDIAGRAPHY RELATING TO THE BLACK MAN Compiled by James E. Parker, Director Audiovisual-Television Center North Carolina College at Durham May, 1969 North Carolina College at Durham Durham, North Carolina 27707 .4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii FOREWORD iii DISC RECORDINGS 1-6 FILMSTRIPS AND MULTIMEDIA KITS 7- 18 MICROFILMS 19- 25 NOTION PICTURES 26- 48 PICTURES, POSTERS, CHARTS. -
Historical Background
DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit: The Representation of Segregation In The House behind the Cedars, Cane and Black Boy Verfasserin: Carina Mazzucato, BA angestrebter akademischer Grad: Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.phil.) Wien, Jänner 2013 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 343 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Anglistik und Amerikanistik Betreuer: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Waldemar Zacharasiewicz Contents 1 Acknowledgements ......................................................................... 1 2 Abbreviations ................................................................................... 2 3 Introduction ...................................................................................... 3 4 Historical Background .................................................................... 6 5 Segregation Narrative ................................................................... 12 6 Categories ...................................................................................... 14 6.1 Racial Cartography ......................................................................... 14 6.2 Fear and Violence ........................................................................... 15 6.2.1 Intimate Violence ......................................................................................... 15 6.2.2 Disciplinary Violence ................................................................................... 16 6.3 Folklore ............................................................................................ 18 6.4 Language and Education -
Materiality and Masculinity in African American Literature. (2014) Directed by Dr
GIBSON, SCOTT THOMAS, Ph.D. Heavy Things: Materiality and Masculinity in African American Literature. (2014) Directed by Dr. SallyAnn H. Ferguson. 222 pp. Heavy Things illustrates how African American writers redefine black manhood through metaphors of heaviness, figured primarily through their representation of material objects. Taking the literal and figurative weight the narrator’s briefcase in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man as a starting point, this dissertation examines literary representations of material objects, including gifts, toys, keepsakes, historical documents, statues, and souvenirs as modes of critiquing the materialist foundations of manhood in the United States. Historically, materialism has facilitated white male domination over black men by associating property ownership with both whiteness and manhood. These writers not only reject materialism as a vehicle of oppression but also reveal alternative paths along which black men can thrive in a hostile American society. Each chapter of my analysis is structured around specific kinds of “heavy” objects—gifts, artifacts, and memorials—that liberate black men from white definitions of manhood based in possessive materialism. In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and Ernest Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying, gifts reestablished ties between alienated black men and their communities. In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and John Edgar Wideman’s Fatheralong, black sons attempt to reconcile their fraught relationships with their fathers through the recovery of historical artifacts. In Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days and Emily Raboteau’s The Professor’s Daughter, black men and women use commemorative objects such as monuments and memorials to reimagine black male abjection as a trope of healing. -
John A. Williams's the Man Who Cried I Am
Ewa Luczak $IWHUWKH(QGRI0DQ-RKQ$:LOOLDPV¶V The Man Who Cried I Am Among the books written by African American writers and addressing the expatriate H[SHULHQFH-RKQ$:LOOLDPV¶VThe Man Who Cried I Am (1965) takes a central place. It testifies to the radical shift in the way exile, modernity and identity are constructed in African American literature in the 1960s. It sums up the radical move of the generation of the 1960s from the concept of exile embodied by the immigration of Richard Wright m A toZDUGV WKH FRQFHSW RI QRPDGLVP HQWKXVLDVWLFDOO\ HQGRUVHG E\ WKH \RXQJHU ³1HZ I 1 %UHHG´ A new way of configuring exile was concomitant with and perhaps also trig- d e i gered by a new way of conceptualizing Europe. Just as the United States of America was r C reappraised by revolutionary black leaders, Europe was probed, investigated and interro- o h gated for its role on the world stage: even though it still attracted black writers with the W n promise of respite from the racism rampant in the streets of the United States, Europe a M underwent scrutiny for its legacy of slavery, racism and colonization. Turning their exile e into a journey into the origin of Western racism, black writers challenged a number of h T concepts and ideological frameworks which, according to them, constituted the founda- tions of European modernity. A major concept that underwent a disfigurement and re- configuration was that of humanism. 7KDW:LOOLDPV¶VQRYHOSODFHV³PDQ´DWWKHFHQWHULVZLWKRXWGRXEW7KHWLWOHWXUQV WKHUHDGHU¶VDWWHQWLRQWRDPDQZKRDVVHUWVKLV existence in what looks like a desper- ate act of screaming. -
Your Name Here
TEXTUAL (DIS)CONNECTIONS: ELECTRIFICATION, NARRATIVE FAILURE, AND THE BILDUNGSROMAN IN RALPH ELLISON’S INVISIBLE MAN AND E.L. DOCTOROW’S THE BOOK OF DANIEL by EDWARD JOHN ARDENEAUX IV (Under the Direction of Jed Rasula) ABSTRACT This thesis, (artificially) situated between two world’s fairs, explores the problems of electricity and subjectivity in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel. Specifically, it detangles the consequences that these problems provoke for narrative, examined through failures and layers of narrative creation. Beyond these specific novels, this thesis illuminates the Bildungsroman as a generic category in relation to these new generic variants. The failure of the Bildungsroman to evolve, as a category, in American spaces and alongside new youth identities forces a contrast between the way the world once worked and new models of coping and striving in chaotic, electrified landscapes. Through a study of these distinctly American voices and the narratives they create, this thesis examines the influence of electricity on novel form/content and narrative endings as moments of possible textual transcendence. INDEX WORDS: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, E.L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel, World’s Fair, world’s fairs, Franco Moretti, David Nye, Hayden White, Narrative Failure, Electric Socialization, Youth, Electrification, Shock, Electricity, Narrative, Novel, Contemporary American Fiction, Bildungsroman, Genre TEXTUAL (DIS)CONNECTIONS: ELECTRIFICATION, NARRATIVE FAILURE, AND THE BILDGUNGSROMAN IN RALPH ELLISON’S INVISIBLE MAN AND E.L. DOCTOROW’S THE BOOK OF DANIEL by EDWARD JOHN ARDENEAUX IV B.A., The University of New Orleans, 2004 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2008 © 2008 Edward Ardeneaux IV All Rights Reserved TEXTUAL (DIS)CONNECTIONS: ELECTRIFICATION, NARRATIVE FAILURE, AND THE BILDUNGSROMAN IN RALPH ELLISON’S INVISIBLE MAN AND E.L. -
Native Son (Questions)
Native Son (Questions) 1 Wright writes of Bigger Thomas: “these were the rhythms of his life; indifference and violence; periods of abstract brooding and periods of intense desire; moments of silence and moments of anger” … Does Wright intend us to relate to Bigger as a human being – or has he deliberately made him an embodiment of oppressive social and political forces? Is there anything admirable about Bigger? Does he change by the end of the book? 2 James Baldwin, an early protégé of Wright’s, later attacked the older writer for his self-righteousness and reliance on stereo-types… In his famous essay “Everybody’s Protest Novel” Baldwin compared Bigger to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom, and dismissed Native Son as “protest” fiction. Do you agree? 3 When Bigger stands confronted by his family in jail, he thinks… they ought to be glad he was a murderer; “had he not taken on himself the crime of being black?” Talk about Bigger as a victim and sacrificial figure. If Wright wanted us to pity Bigger, why did he portray him as so brutal? 4 How dated does this book seem in its depiction of racial hatred and guilt? Have we as a society moved beyond the rage and hostility that Wright depicts between blacks and whites? Or are we still living in a culture that could produce a figure like Bigger Thomas? https://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/fiction/719-native-son-wright?start=3 Native Son (About the Author) Author: Richard Wright Born: September 4, 1908 Where: near Natchez, MS Education: Smith-Robertson Junior High, Jackson MS Died: November 28, 1960 Where: Paris, France Richard Wright was the first 20th century African-American writer to command both critical acclaim and popular success.