From Melville to Morrison: portrayals of African Americans in selected works of fiction

Abstract

Over the last one hundred and fifty years many authors have attempted to use literature to examine racial attitudes and ideologies in the United States. Some have even found their work being considered in racial terms despite this not being their chief concern or intention. Critics in recent years have suggested that certain canonical American novels reject racist sentiments, certain novels endorse them, and certain novels uncomfortably mix both sentiments together side by side. This thesis examines several canonical American novels of the last one hundred and fifty years and discusses their approach to and representation of the knotty problem of race relations in the United States: Herman Melville's Benito Cereno (1855), Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), William Faulkner's Light in August (1932) and Intruder in the Dust (1948). Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987). Other works which will be briefly looked at are Faulkner's The Fire and the Hearth' from his novel Go Down, Moses and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Obvious racist or anti-racist tendencies, deliberate or otherwise, will be examined, as will the approach of some authors to such racial phenomena as miscegenation.