DOCSLIB.ORG

The Recovery of Rhetorical Traditions in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man And

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Recovery of Rhetorical Traditions in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man And Rhetorics Rising: The Recovery of Rhetorical Traditions in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn by Bruce Dadey A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2006 © Bruce Dadey 2006 Author’s Declaration for Electronic Submission of a Thesis I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract This study suggests, through a rhetorical analysis of the role of orators and oration in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, that literature can be a valuable resource for the study of comparative and contrastive rhetoric; conversely, it also demonstrates that a knowledge of culturally-specific rhetorical and narrative practices is important for understanding ethnic-American novels and their social significance. Written during periods of intense racial upheaval in the United States, Invisible Man and House Made of Dawn are, to use a term coined by George Kennedy, metarhetorics: works that explore, from cross-cultural and intercultural perspectives, the ends and means of rhetoric and the ways in which rhetoric is linked to the formation of individual, ethnic, and national identities. This exploration is undertaken through the diegetic rhetoric of the novels, the depiction of rhetorical practice within their fictional worlds. Ellison’s young orator, who vacillates between accommodationist, communist, and African American vernacular rhetorics, and Momaday’s alienated protagonist, who is healed through the postcolonial rhetoric of a Peyotist street preacher and the ritual rhetoric of a displaced Navajo chanter, both illustrate how the recovery of traditional rhetorical practices is an integral part of cultural empowerment. The interaction of culturally-specific systems of rhetoric is also embodied in the extradiegetic rhetoric of the novels, the means by which the novels themselves influence their readers. Central to the novels’ own rhetorical effectiveness is their authors’ strategic appropriation of modernist techniques, which allowed the works to negotiate multiple literary traditions or social contexts, to penetrate and transform the American canon, and to accommodate and affect readers from a broad range of cultural backgrounds. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Kevin McGuirk, for his generous enthusiasm and guidance throughout all the iterations of this project, and the other members of my committee, Linda Warley, Victoria Lamont, and Andrew McMurry, for their advice and support. I would also like to thank Randy Harris, who initially sparked my interest in rhetoric, Glenn Stillar, who introduced me to the work of Kenneth Burke, Lynn Lawson, who provided a space for me to write, and the women of Edmonton Public Schools’ Sacred Circle Project, who shared their wisdom and life stories with me, beginning the journey that has resulted in this project. Finally, I would like to thank Kym-Su Matheson, who has shared on a daily basis all the challenges and joys that accompanied the completion of this thesis. iv This project is dedicated to Kym-Su, without whose patience and support it would not have been completed. v Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Washingtonian and Vernacular Rhetoric in the Deep South.............................. 25 Chapter 3: The Return of the Repressed Vernacular ............................................................. 67 Chapter 4: Trickster Oratory in House Made of Dawn ........................................................ 136 Chapter 5: A Rhetoric of Ritual and Blood............................................................................ 209 Chapter 6: Conclusion—Toward a Modernist Rhetoric ...................................................... 274 Notes ........................................................................................................................................... 304 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................ 335 vi Chapter 1: Introduction The 1950s and 1960s were a time of revolutionary change in American race relations, change that was, to a significant degree, reflected in the literature written during those years by ethnic-American authors. In this project, I argue that the increased political activism of marginalized cultural groups in the United States during the mid-twentieth century was associated with another process that is also reflected in the literature of the times: the recovery of culturally-distinct rhetorical practices and traditions that were formerly displaced by dominant Euro-American rhetorical traditions. In order to explore the nature of this rhetorical recovery and its relation to its social and political context, I will examine in depth the role of rhetoric in two works of ethnic-American literature, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, analyzing both the rhetorical action that takes place within the fictional worlds of the novels, which I will call diegetic rhetoric, and the potential rhetorical effects of the novels themselves on their readers, which I will call extradiegetic rhetoric. In his seminal essay “The Rhetorical Situation,” Lloyd Bitzer writes that The rhetorical situation as real is to be distinguished…from a fictive rhetorical situation. The speech of a character in a novel or play may be clearly required by a fictive rhetorical situation, a situation established by the story itself; but the speech is not genuinely rhetorical, even though, considered in itself, it looks exactly like a courtroom address or a senate speech. It is realistic, made so by fictive context. But the situation is not real, not grounded in history; neither the fictive situation nor the discourse generated by it is rhetorical. We should note, however, that the fictive rhetorical discourse within a play or novel may become genuinely rhetorical outside the fictive context—if there is a real 1 situation for which the discourse is a rhetorical response. Also, of course, the play or novel itself may be understood as a rhetorical response having poetic form. (224) Bitzer defines rhetorical discourse as symbolic action on the part of a rhetor in response to a historical situation containing a genuine exigency, an actual audience, and concrete material, psychological, or social constraints, and, accordingly, he suggests that a fictive depiction of oratory cannot actually be considered as rhetorical, except insofar as we examine the extradiegetic rhetorical effects of the work on a genuine audience. In this project, however, I will argue that fictional depictions of rhetorical action in the works I have selected (and in others) may be fruitfully analyzed in rhetorical terms because they are indeed “grounded in history,” reflecting rhetorical practice as it takes place within a particular cultural framework; indeed, I assert that fictive depictions of rhetoric, within the overall context of the works, can function as a narrative form of what George A. Kennedy has termed a “metarhetoric” (History 3), a theory of what rhetoric is and how it works. William W. Cook, analyzing the relation of the African American rhetorical tradition to artistic productions, asserts that Ellison’s novel, “when fully understood,” should stand next to the works of sociolinguists such as Roger Abrahams or Geneva Smitherman “as a thoroughly worked-out study not only of African American rhetoric but of the liberating power of that rhetoric and the cultural forces that it embodies” (260). Both novels in this study explicitly concern themselves with the nature and ends of rhetorical practice: Ellison’s unnamed protagonist is an aspiring orator, and Momaday’s protagonist, Abel, is plagued by a lack of speech and is healed through the efforts of two orators: Tosamah, an irreverent Peyote priest, and Ben Benally, a displaced Navajo chanter. This blending of narrative and rhetorical theory is not without precedent, even within 2 the classical tradition—one need only recall Plato’s Gorgias or Phaedrus, or Cicero’s De Oratore, all of which set their analyses of rhetorical practice within a narrative context, albeit one less developed than that of Ellison or Momaday. Nor is the study of fictional rhetoric foreign to the classical tradition, as rhetorical critics have long commented on speeches from epics such as the Iliad or Odyssey or on orations which were likely invented by classical historians such as Thucydides or Herodotus, presuming that the speeches, even if fictitious, reveal something about the practice of and attitudes toward rhetoric at the time they were given, or at the time the writer included them in his own work (see, for instance, Kennedy, History 13-14, 21-23). Yet the use of narrative to embody a metarhetoric is especially appropriate in the works studied here, for three reasons: first, because in both African American and Native American oral traditions, story plays a central role in communicating cultural norms or practices; second, because story is an integral part of rhetorical practice as it is portrayed
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Rhetorical Analysis of Examination Essays In
    A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF EXAMINATION ESSAYS IN THREE DISCIPLINES: THE CASE OF GHANAIAN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS JOSEPH BENJAMIN ARCHIBALD AFFUL (B.A. (Hons), Dip. Ed., MPhil) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2005 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am very grateful to many people from diverse backgrounds for their invaluable contributions in several forms towards the completion of this work. First, I owe a great debt of gratitude to Dr. Sunita Anne Abraham, who has been helpful as principal supervisor and inspiring with her invaluable guidance, able supervision, and unflagging interest in my research. I would also like to express my profound gratitude to Associate Professor Christopher Stroud and Dr. Peter Tan Kok Wan, the other members of my thesis committee, for their encouragement, which has made the completion of this work possible. I have greatly benefited from discussions with Professor Desmond Allison, Associate Professor Paul Matsuda, Professor Ken Hyland, Professor Tony Silva, Dr. Paul Bruthiaux, Dr Lawe-Davies, and Ms. Juno Price during the initial stages of the work, while shaping the research proposal. Their suggestions were very helpful in guiding me to current literature in the area of study. I am indebted to the National University of Singapore (NUS) for offering me both admission and a research scholarship to enable me to conduct the study. I am thankful to my mates in the Department of English Language and Literature – Ms. Anggara Mah and Ms. Jennifer Tan – and fellow students from other departments in NUS – Mr. Edward Bannerman-Wood, Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Youtube and the Vernacular Rhetorics of Web 2.0
    i REMEDIATING DEMOCRACY: YOUTUBE AND THE VERNACULAR RHETORICS OF WEB 2.0 Erin Dietel-McLaughlin A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2010 Committee: Kristine Blair, Advisor Louisa Ha Graduate Faculty Representative Michael Butterworth Lee Nickoson ii ABSTRACT Kristine Blair, Advisor This dissertation examines the extent to which composing practices and rhetorical strategies common to ―Web 2.0‖ arenas may reinvigorate democracy. The project examines several digital composing practices as examples of what Gerard Hauser (1999) and others have dubbed ―vernacular rhetoric,‖ or common modes of communication that may resist or challenge more institutionalized forms of discourse. Using a cultural studies approach, this dissertation focuses on the popular video-sharing site, YouTube, and attempts to theorize several vernacular composing practices. First, this dissertation discusses the rhetorical trope of irreverence, with particular attention to the ways in which irreverent strategies such as new media parody transcend more traditional modes of public discourse. Second, this dissertation discusses three approaches to video remix (collection, Detournement, and mashing) as political strategies facilitated by Web 2.0 technologies, with particular attention to the ways in which these strategies challenge the construct of authorship and the power relationships inherent in that construct. This dissertation then considers the extent to which sites like YouTube remediate traditional rhetorical modes by focusing on the genre of epideictic rhetoric and the ways in which sites like YouTube encourage epideictic practice. Finally, in light of what these discussions reveal in terms of rhetorical practice and democracy in Web 2.0 arenas, this dissertation offers a concluding discussion of what our ―Web 2.0 world‖ might mean for composition studies in terms of theory, practice, and the teaching of writing.
    [Show full text]
  • The Open Court
    — 3^0 The Open Court. DEVOTED TO THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. Two Dollars per Year. No. 287. (Vol. VII.— 8.) CHICAGO, ) FEBRUARY 23, 1893. '( Single Copies, 5 Cents. Copyright by The Open Court Publishing Co.—Reprints are permitted only on condition of giving full credit to Author and Publisher. than by daily massacres. AUTOS-DA-FK. They also believed in the necessity of popular pastimes, and realised the wisdom BY DR. FELIX L. 0SW.4LD. of propitiating the leaders of victorious armies, and Moral philosophers have often expressed the opin- under the best as well as under the worst of the twenty- ion that no change in the by-laws of ethics will ever six world-kings the significance of the vce victis was affect the stability of certain conventional maxims brought home to vanquished foes and captured crimi- not strictly compatible, in all cases, with our present nals in those orgies of bloodshed which have been conceptions of ideal justice. Among the numerous called the "foulest stain on the records of the human proofs demonstrating the permanence of those inter- race." national compromise axioms we might mention the Yet among the Roman writers who utterly failed to facts that Might has always biased the standards of anticipate that verdict of posterity, there were some Right, and that no protest against the atrocity of in- exemplars of Stoic ethics, and some who frequently dividual sufferings has ever been permitted to inter- denounced acts of wanton cruelty to animals and men. fere with the promotion of principles supposed to in- Cicero, who treated his slaves more kindly than our volve the supreme welfare of the community.
    [Show full text]
  • The Tragedy of Hamlet
    THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET EDITED BY EDWARD DOWDEN n METHUEN AND CO. 36 ESSEX STREET: STRAND LONDON 1899 9 5 7 7 95 —— CONTENTS PAGE Introduction ix The Tragedy of Hamlet i Appendix I. The "Travelling" of the Players. 229 Appendix II.— Some Passages from the Quarto of 1603 231 Appendix III. Addenda 235 INTRODUCTION This edition of Hamlet aims in the first place at giving a trustworthy text. Secondly, it attempts to exhibit the variations from that text which are found in the primary sources—the Quarto of 1604 and the Folio of 1623 — in so far as those variations are of importance towards the ascertainment of the text. Every variation is not recorded, but I have chosen to err on the side of excess rather than on that of defect. Readings from the Quarto of 1603 are occa- sionally given, and also from the later Quartos and Folios, but to record such readings is not a part of the design of this edition. 1 The letter Q means Quarto 604 ; F means Folio 1623. The dates of the later Quartos are as follows: —Q 3, 1605 161 1 undated 6, For ; Q 4, ; Q 5, ; Q 1637. my few references to these later Quartos I have trusted the Cambridge Shakespeare and Furness's edition of Hamlet. Thirdly, it gives explanatory notes. Here it is inevitable that my task should in the main be that of selection and condensation. But, gleaning after the gleaners, I have perhaps brought together a slender sheaf.
    [Show full text]
  • Best of Student Essays
    Volunteer State Community College Best of Student Essays from the 2014-2015 Academic Year Expository Essays & Research Writing This publication is made possible with funding from the VSCC Humanities Division, Department of English Faculty, and the support of Bedford/St. Martin’s Publishers. Acknowledgements Dean of Humanities: Alycia Ehlert, Ed.D. English Department Chair: Laura Black Best Essays Committee Chair: Leslie LaChance Best Essays Selection Committee: Laura Black, Jessica Cocita, Mickey Hall, Deborah Moore, Kelly Ormsby, Jaime Sanchez, Cynthia Wyatt Support Staff: Rhonda Custer, Debra Lindsay Editing and Layout: Leslie LaChance Production and Design: Eric Melcher, Coordinator of Communications ii Introduction Volunteer State Community College Best Essays is a new incarnation of a previous publication entitled VSCC English Department’s Best Essays. As the early version has done over the past decade, this publication will continue to showcase some of the best writing being done by students at Volunteer State, and we have just expanded the publication to include examples of excellent writing from a variety of academic disciplines. While much of the work appearing here is nominated by faculty in the Department of English, which publishes this book, faculty from other disciplines are now also invited to nominate student essays for collection. This year, we are pleased to include our first essay from a discipline other than English, “Patriarchy’s Roots,” written by Amy Leu for History 1110, World Civilization 1. Each year, instructors at Volunteer State nominate students who have demonstrated excellence in writing and invite them to submit an essay to our selection committee; that committee of Vol State faculty then works collaboratively to choose superior student work for publication.
    [Show full text]
  • Native American Literature: Remembrance, Renewal
    U.S. Society and Values, "Contemporary U.S. Literature: Multicultura...partment of State, International Information Programs, February 2000 NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE: REMEMBRANCE, RENEWAL By Geary Hobson In 1969, the fiction committee for the prestigious Pulitzer Prizes in literature awarded its annual honor to N. Scott Momaday, a young professor of English at Stanford University in California, for a book entitled House Made of Dawn. The fact that Momaday's novel dealt almost entirely with Native Americans did not escape the attention of the news media or of readers and scholars of contemporary literature. Neither did the author's Kiowa Indian background. As news articles pointed out, not since Oliver LaFarge received the same honor for Laughing Boy, exactly 40 years earlier, had a so-called "Indian" novel been so honored. But whereas LaFarge was a white man writing about Indians, Momaday was an Indian -- the first Native American Pulitzer laureate. That same year, 1969, another young writer, a Sioux attorney named Vine Deloria, Jr., published Custer Died For Your Sins, subtitled "an Indian Manifesto." It examined, incisively, U.S. attitudes at the time towards Native American matters, and appeared almost simultaneously with The American Indian Speaks, an anthology of writings by various promising young American Indians -- among them Simon J. Ortiz, James Welch, Phil George, Janet Campbell and Grey Cohoe, all of whom had been only fitfully published at that point. These developments that spurred renewed -- or new -- interest in contemporary Native American writing were accompanied by the appearance around that time of two works of general scholarship on the subject, Peter Farb's Man's Rise to Civilization (1968) and Dee Brown's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (1970).
    [Show full text]
  • Black Rhetoric: the Art of Thinking Being
    BLACK RHETORIC: THE ART OF THINKING BEING by APRIL LEIGH KINKEAD Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON May 2013 Copyright © by April Leigh Kinkead 2013 All Rights Reserved ii Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the guidance, advice, and support of others. I would like to thank my advisor, Cedrick May, for his taking on the task of directing my dissertation. His knowledge, advice, and encouragement helped to keep me on track and made my completing this project possible. I am grateful to Penelope Ingram for her willingness to join this project late in its development. Her insights and advice were as encouraging as they were beneficial to my project’s aims. I am indebted to Kevin Gustafson, whose careful reading and revisions gave my writing skills the boost they needed. I am a better writer today thanks to his teachings. I also wish to extend my gratitude to my school colleagues who encouraged me along the way and made this journey an enjoyable experience. I also wish to thank the late Emory Estes, who inspired me to pursue graduate studies. I am equally grateful to Luanne Frank for introducing me to Martin Heidegger’s theories early in my graduate career. This dissertation would not have come into being without that introduction or her guiding my journey through Heidegger’s theories. I must also thank my family and friends who have stood by my side throughout this long journey.
    [Show full text]
  • Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison: Conflicting Masculinities
    W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1994 Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison: Conflicting Masculinities H. Alexander Nejako College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Nejako, H. Alexander, "Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison: Conflicting Masculinities" (1994). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539625892. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-nehz-v842 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RICHARD WRIGHT AND RALPH ELLISON: CONFLICTING MASCULINITIES A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of English The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by H. Alexander Nejako 1994 ProQuest Number: 10629319 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10629319 Published by ProQuest LLC (2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.
    [Show full text]
  • Description, Narrative, and Reflection
    EmpoWord: A Student-Centered Anthology & Handbook for College Writers Part One: Description, Narrative, and Reflection Author: Shane Abrams, Portland State University This chapter is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License Download this book free at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/pdxopen/20/ Part One: Description, Narration, and Reflection 55 Section Introduction: Description, Narration, and Reflection Chapter Vocabulary Vocabulary Definition a rhetorical mode that emphasizes eye-catching, specific, and vivid description portrayal of a subject. Often integrates imagery and thick description to this end. a rhetorical mode involving the construction and relation of stories. narration Typically integrates description as a technique. a rhetorical gesture by which an author looks back, through the diegetic gap, to demonstrate knowledge or understanding gained from the subject on which they are reflecting. May also include consideration of reflection the impact of that past subject on the author’s future—“Looking back in order to look forward.” the circumstances in which rhetoric is produced, understood using the constituent elements of subject, occasion, audience, and purpose. Each element of the rhetorical situation carries assumptions and imperatives rhetorical situation about the kind of rhetoric that will be well received. Rhetorical situation will also influence mode and medium. Storytelling is one of few rituals that permeates all cultures. Indeed, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a well-told story. But what exactly makes for a well-told story? Of course, the answer to that question depends on your rhetorical situation: your audience, your sociohistorical position, and your purpose will determine how you tell your story.
    [Show full text]
  • Continuing Trickster Storytelling: the Trickster Protagonists of Three Contemporary Indian Narratives
    Continuing Trickster Storytelling: The Trickster Protagonists of Three Contemporary Indian Narratives A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English University of Regina by Solomon Ratt Regina, Saskatchewan August, 1996 Copyright 1996: Solomon Ratt 395 Wellington Street 395, ~e Wellington Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic fomats. la forme de microfiche/fh, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be pnnted or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract The Trickster is perhaps the most significant figure in al1 the North American Indian oral narratives. This theçis contends that the Trickster figure is alive and exists as the protagonist of many contemporary American Indian novels. The authors of three novels under study here--House Made of Dam by N. Scott Momaday, Winter In the Blood by James Welch, and Griever: An American Monkev Kins In China by Gerald Vizenor-- with varying degrees of consciousness employ elements of traditional oral stories, especiallythe Trickster protagonist of those stories, to create new Trickster narratives that address issues relevant to the contemporary world.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]