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Mémoires Année : 2023

«She was never property» : how Colson Whitehead’s «The Underground Railroad» rewrites history

Résumé

In «The Underground Railroad», Colson Whitehead reimagines the anti-slavery network known as the underground railroad as a real set of trains and tracks to create a vast, adventurous narrative which takes the main character Cora through various American states, evading danger and capture to try and find the community which was denied to her on the plantation where she was born. By reading this work through the lens of the traditional slave narrative and the neo-slave narrative genres, the themes of family and community, literature and history, and the hidden and the visible become prevalent. Family and community are constantly undermined, yet literature offers Cora an escape from the violence that follows each time she believes to have found a home. The importance of literature allows Whitehead to question how american history is represented, and the exploration of what is hidden and visible evokes the denial of racism and slavery in modern-day society. Through these themes, and deft manipulation of genre, time, and place, this novel interrogates american history and offers hopeful visions of a more enlightened future. A pedagogic sequence will demonstrate how the themes of the novel can be used with pupils to develop their understanding of race and black history in America.

Domaines

Education
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Dates et versions

dumas-04347525 , version 1 (15-12-2023)

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Paternité - Pas d'utilisation commerciale - Pas de modification

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Sophie Gray. «She was never property» : how Colson Whitehead’s «The Underground Railroad» rewrites history. Education. 2023. ⟨dumas-04347525⟩
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