MEMORY AND THE NEO-SLAVE NOVEL IN COLSON WHITEHEAD’S THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD AND TA-NEHISI COATES’ THE WATER DANCER

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Neo-slave narrative,, slavery,, memory,, racism.

Resumo

This analysis investigates two recent African-American novels, namely, The Underground Railroad (2016) by Colson Whitehead and The Water Dancer (2019) by Ta-nehisi Coates from the configurations proposed by the literary genre known as neo-slave narratives. These narratives are postmodern fictional reinterpretations of 19th century slave narratives which had a fundamental role in the American process of abolition. First, I will provide a brief overview of neo-slave narratives, particularly with regards to the North American literary context, and proceed to investigate how the two novels can be classified as belonging to this genre. Second, I will focus on the role of memory in both novels as forgotten historical events and religious myths are revisited by the writers. As theoretical support, I will turn to authors such as Bernard Bell, Ashraf H.A. Rushdy, Toni Morrison, Valerie Smith, among others, who investigated not only the reasons for the emergence of neo-slave narratives, but also reflected on the implications that these postmodern narratives have for the memory of slavery.

Biografia do Autor

Roberto Ferreira Junior, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Vitória, ES

Professor de Literatura em Língua Inglesa no departamento de Línguas e Letras da Ufes

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Publicado

2024-07-03

Como Citar

Junior, R. F. (2024). MEMORY AND THE NEO-SLAVE NOVEL IN COLSON WHITEHEAD’S THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD AND TA-NEHISI COATES’ THE WATER DANCER. Revista Brasileira De Literatura Comparada, 24(46), 41–57. Recuperado de https://rblc.com.br/index.php/rblc/article/view/663

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