Department of English and American Studies 2019
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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Bc. Anna Mária Pisoňová Representation of the Trickster Figure in Selected Works Written by African American Authors Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Jeffrey A. Vanderziel, B.A. 2019 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor, Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A. for setting me on the right path when I was stuck and for his valuable advice and guidance throughout writing this thesis. I would also like to thank my Juniatan mentor, Amanda Page, PhD. for going with me through the tough beginnings. Finally, this thesis would have never happened without those who understand the sacred chant of “egg, egg,” those special ones, who always listened to my thesis ideas although they did not understand a word of what I was saying, and the one who spent the last, most painful days, struggling with me and her own thesis. The Lord of the Rings marathon, here I come! Table of Contents 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………….……………1 1.1. Am I a trickster? – Definition of the archetype………………………………………...5 1.2. Origins of African American Trickster…………………………………….…………7 2. Boundaries, margins, and the American Society………………………………….……12 3. Conquering the Binary Opposition……………………………………………………..25 4. Appetite as a Driving Force of Trickster’s Actions…………………………………..36 5. Sacrifice……………………….………………………………………………………….48 6. Conclusion………………………………………………......……………………………59 7. Works Cited and Consulted…………………………………………………………….62 1. Introduction Looking from the doorsteps of a society, never truly entering our world, but always ready to deceive and fool, to entertain and to point out the absurdity of our own world order, there is a mythical, ambiguous character as old as the humans themselves – a trickster. Because of the important role that the trickster has had in African and subsequently African American folklore, he is allowed to cross the doorsteps and enter to the centre of their oral and literary traditions, unlike those who bear it, African Americans, whose marginal status within the American society has, arguably, lasted until today. Therefore the trickster has, throughout history, served as their expression of revolt and as a criticism of the oppressive society, but, with the oppositeness of its definition, also as a reason for laughter and entertainment. This diploma thesis explores what trickster traits are represented the most in the selected works of African American literary canon and what functions these traits serve. It tries to examine the trickster characteristics and their possible change throughout history. The primary sources used for this examination are the following: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself by Frederick Douglass, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, and Sula by Toni Morrison. Each of these authors operated under different conditions, which, subsequently, impacted their perception of trickster’s functions and representation. First, Frederick Douglass was born approximately in February 1818 as a slave on a plantation in Maryland, escaped at the age of twenty and joined the abolitionist movement in New York. He wrote his memoir to point out the inhuman conditions that the slaves lived under, which eventually became a canonical work of the slave narrative genre. Ralph Ellison, born in 1914 in Oklahoma, worked on Invisible Man during the times of segregation and Jim Crow laws, publishing 1 the book in 1952, shortly before the Civil Rights Movement broke forth in the United States three years later with Montgomery Bus Boycott. Similarly to Douglass’s memoir, Invisible Man has some autobiographical traits, too. Ellison, for example, similarly to the narrator of Invisible Man, attended an all-black university, ended up disillusioned about its class-oriented functioning, moved to Harlem, and became associated with Communist ideas presented in the book by the Brotherhood. Finally, Toni Morrison was born in 1931 in Ohio. She published her first book Song of Solomon in 1970 and did not stop writing until her death earlier this year. Her works often centre around strong African American women and their roles in society, Sula not being an exception. She is perceived as one of the most prominent contemporary female African American writers. The differences between three American societies, each different, nevertheless each a reality for one of the authors discussed in this thesis, led to my hypothesis that the exploration of trickster figure in each of their works would be different too, and would be influenced by the social and political background of each time period – slavery, pre-Civil Rights Movement, and post-Civil Rights Movement. Using Andrew Williams’s concept that in the times of slavery “African American folk tales […] were modified to meet the conditions of slavery […with the trickster] represent[ing] a revolutionary stance against oppression” (n.p.), I assumed that different time periods, placing African Americans under different conditions, would also need different representations of trickster figures. First, this diploma thesis tries to define a trickster and introduce the origins of African American trickster folk tales that create a model for the trickster representation in African American literary canon following the oral tradition. Afterwards, it is divided into four chapters, each analysing an individual trickster trait in the above-mentioned works. To be able to evaluate the trickster’s representation, the thesis is meant to closely 2 analyse some of the trickster characteristics that all the above-mentioned books include, namely boundary-crossing, defying binary opposition, appetites, and sacrifice. While doing so, it leans against Lewis Hyde’s comprehensive study of the trickster archetype in his work Trickster Makes this World and Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s book The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. Using close reading and comparative analysis as the main methods, this thesis focuses on each trait, supporting it with secondary sources and criticism of each work. The first chapter discusses the instances of boundary crossing, both physical and psychological. It demonstrates how Frederick Douglass becomes a boundary-crosser by the act of writing a memoir which becomes a central work of the slave narrative genre and how the slave characters present in the Narrative are put at the same time on the margins and in the centre of the book. Further, it argues that Douglass represents an oxymoron of a free slave and describes his opposition to the racist social hierarchy. Tying Douglass’s portrayal of boundary-crossing to Ellison’s balancing at the margins of society, it further examines the means that Ellison’s narrator uses to discover his identity and his position in society, drawing a distinction between different perceptions of a trickster figure. Finally, it analyses Morrison’s depiction of Sula as a perpetrator of the social norms dictated by her community by violating the rule designated for an African American woman in the first half of the 20th century. The second chapter analyses the portrayal of the binary opposition, mainly its criticism, in all books chosen for this research. It is usually portrayed through the individual’s perception of the world. In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative it is present in his biracial background and subsequent status of a free slave, in Ellison’s Invisible Man it is depicted in the narrator’s struggle for his identity, and in Morrison’s Sula it is 3 demonstrated in the presumable oppositions embodied in Sula and Nel. The chapter examines the trickster’s ability to reject the world working in black-and-white mode and explains how this concept is used in the selected literary works. The third chapter explores the trickster’s appetites and their portrayal in each book and ties it to the question of morality that often stands in the way of fulfilling these appetites. Douglass’s appetites are most visible in the form of hunger and pursuit of literacy, in Invisible Man they are present in the form of sexual desire of Jim Trueblood and the boys fighting in Battle royal, and in the narrator’s dedication to revenge. Furthermore, in Sula, similarly to Ellison’s book, they are represented in the form of sexual freedom of the main character. The chapter discusses multiple readings of appetites depicted in the books and examines their literal, as well as metaphorical, meanings. Finally, the fourth chapter pursues the depiction of sacrifice, more specifically the motivation of tricksters to bring a sacrifice and the consequences it has on the trickster characters in each book. It also discusses the various positions that the tricksters find themselves in relation to sacrifice. Not always they take the role of a sacrificer, but at times also find themselves to be the sacrifice or the entity that the sacrifice is meant for. The chapter examines sacrifice present in Douglass’s struggle with intemperance and his decision to pursue higher goals. Further, it analyses Ellison’s narrator and the various roles that he inhabits within the sacrificial ritual. Finally, it focuses on the depiction of sacrifice in Sula, impersonated in the character of Eva Peace. It is intertwined with the previous chapter, as the trickster’s sacrifice is usually closely associated with his appetites. Although working with a hypothesis that the depiction of the trickster figure would differ in each work based on the time period and social background of each author, 4 in conclusion, these traits seem to follow the same central function – to resist the oppression of the society they are set into. However, the traits themselves are portrayed differently in each work, drawing from not only the historical options for African Americans in the United States, but also from the authors’ backgrounds and the central themes of the books.