Open AccessCONTINUITY OF AFROCENTRIC TROPES ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE NOVELS BY PAULE MARSHALL AND GLORIA NAYLOR
Author(s) -
Sandra Novkinić
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
folia linguistica et litteraria/folia linguistica et litteraria
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
0eISSN - 2337-0955
pISSN - 1800-8542
DOI - 10.31902/fll.32.2020.2
Subject(s) - identity (music) , mythology , legend , vernacular , irony , racism , literature , african american , sociology , history , art , anthropology , gender studies , aesthetics
African American literature that is fundamentally a socially symboliclinguistic construct, seeks different ways to expand and continue theuse of Afrocentric vernacular tropes of personal and collective identityformation. The five residual oral forms – oratory (including everydayspeech acts), myth/ritual performance, legend, tale, and song – as wellas satire, irony, and paradox are used by contemporary African American novelists.This paper points to how the legendary black ancestors and elder members of the community, the gifted and often rebellious orator, musician, artist, the spiritual leader, and the messianic figure are equally enduring symbols and tropes.The aim of this work is to show the way in which the contemporary African American novelists Paule Marshall and Gloria Naylor use these (above mentioned) characters and symbols to reconstruct their long struggle as individuals and as community againstanti-black racism. Therefore, the focus of this paper is on continuity of Afrocentric tropes in African American personal/collective and female/male identity formation as represented in selected novels by Paule Marshall and Gloria Naylor.