원문정보
The Return of the Repressed Diasporian Religions in African American Novels : Focusing on the Works of Chesnutt,Hurston, Morrison, Reed, and Naylor
초록
영어
In this paper, I mainly deal with African American authors like Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, Ishmael Reed, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, and John Edgar Wideman, focusing on the return of the repressed diasporian religions: Voodoo, Hoodoo, and Cantomble. These diasporian religions have been relentlessly repressed and nullified out of interests of White imperialists. Like a sprout inside barren earth which nevertheless grows to bear good fruit, these diasporian religions have survived through harsh discrimination and degradation. The main reasons why these writers continuously return to the diasporian religions are manifold. With these religions, some African American writers retain their homeland’s culture and history, healing rituals, survival strategies, identity politics, etc. They revise other writers’ works and rewrite/right literary works and American canons by representing the supernatural power and imagination of the diasporian religions. In a sense, the diasporian religions play a string-like role in connecting the literary worlds of some African American writers. When slaves came to the Americas by force, the slaveholders purposely scattered them into different plantations in order to disrupt their communication and cooperation. By doing so, the slaveholders tried to prevent the revolt and riot of the slaves. However, the diasporian religions play a major role in connecting many slaves who came from different parts of Africa, thus helping them to fight the imperialists. Likewise, the diasporian religions of some African American writers’ works have the same meaning, and they not only present a back-talk to literary canons and imperialists’ interests, but also create a wider horizon of mutual existence and coexistence.
목차
Abstract
