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Home Living behind the veil : social identity in the pre-civil rights African-American novel

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Identifier	Thesis 2093
Author	Martin, Katie Kollar, 1984-
Title	Living behind the veil : social identity in the pre-civil rights African-American novel
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date	2010
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Notes	Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, African-American literature not only explored the influence of racism on the African-American psyche, but it also strove to convey the desire for a political and social identity within a predominantly white, racist American culture. As a result, writers like James Weldon Johnson, Ralph Ellison and W.E.B. Du Bois created works that explored these topics in order to portray the African-American identity struggle prior to the Civil Rights Movement. My thesis looks at specific works by these three authors in an effort to explore the ways in which American society helps to shape the African-American identity, and in turn, what this influence reveals about the African American quest for social acceptance within these texts. In “Living Behind the Veil,” I provide a close examination of Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) and Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), as well as an analysis of Du Bois’ concept of “double consciousness” as described in The Souls of Black Folk (1903). In my close readings of these texts, I propose that African-American social identity is performative in nature. Expanding upon the traditional studies of race theorists, I consider the implications of looking at racial identity and Performance Theory side by side in order to explore the ways in which African-American social identity is constructed and performed in the quest for social acceptance. Looking at these ideas through the scope of Performance Theory, my thesis asserts that the social fate of the characters in Autobiography and Invisible Man is contingent upon their ability, or inability, to conform to the pre-constructed social norms of their American societies. I also suggest that, in the process of enacting certain social norms, the protagonists in these novels suffer from a conflict of their double consciousness. As a result, this confusion between their “American” and “African American” identities prevents them from assimilating into mainstream American culture and achieving the social acceptance they desire.
Subject	Johnson, James Weldon, 1871-1938 -- Political and social views Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963 -- Political and social views Ellison, Ralph -- Political and social views African Americans -- Race identity -- 20th century African Americans in literature
Department	Department of English
Advisor	Barrington, Candace
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
OCLC number	696007808
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