From Necessity to Possibility: Postmodern and Heideggerian Aspects of Passing and Identity in Early African American Novels From 1853 to 1912

SAGE Open

Charles Cullum¹ 

关键词: postmodern identity;    African American literature;    racial passing;    philosophy;    literature;    Martin Heidegger;   

DOI  :  10.1177/2158244015618234

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

This article applies theories of fragmented postmodern identity and Heidegger’s modes of existence and concept of historicality to the issue of passing and traces the treatment of that motif across six African American novels that move from the largely realistic perspective of the 19th century to the subjectivist perspective of the early 20th century. These novels thus foreshadow the postmodernist questioning of the basis of discrete personal identity. The article claims that, across these novels, the act of passing and its relationship to human identity through time and historical circumstance becomes problematized from a necessary tool for escaping slavery, and so sustaining identity in its most basic form as life itself, to a potential existential dilemma of identity as a matter of authenticity and possibility. The article further discusses whether the individual is constrained by his or her background, especially, by race itself, or is a totally free, ungrounded agent.

【 授权许可】

CC BY