Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Writing Through the Lower Frequencies: Interpreting the Unnaming and Naming Process within Richard Wright's Native Son and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

Lacy, Sarah M.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1494341009717745

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
The search for identity within Richard Wright’s Native Son and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man has long been analyzed, yet the fact that each protagonist’s search for self is brought to a point of crisis during an intimate interaction with a white woman has often been neglected. Here, I analyze each author’s strategic use of a nameless narrator by utilizing the work of W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon, arguing that the act of “literary unnaming” is used to critique the development of black American identity during the time of Jim Crow. The use of a nameless narrator is explored through “the unnaming and naming process,” which I situate as symbolic of the historical unnaming of the African people, who were subjected to naming and cultural stripping during the time of slavery. Each narrator’s scene with a white woman (Mary in Native Son and Sybil in Invisible Man) is critiqued in order to highlight the most intimate unnaming and naming process, and is identified as the narrator’s catalyst that begins the re-claiming of his unnamed state, identified here as the “re-naming” process.
Julie Burrell, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
James Marino, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Adam Sonstegard, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
68 p.
African American Studies; American Literature; Literature; Modern Literature
naming, unnaming, narrative technique, African American identity, white gaze, double consciousness

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Lacy, S. M. (2017). Writing Through the Lower Frequencies: Interpreting the Unnaming and Naming Process within Richard Wright's Native Son and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man [Master's thesis, Cleveland State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1494341009717745

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Lacy, Sarah. Writing Through the Lower Frequencies: Interpreting the Unnaming and Naming Process within Richard Wright's Native Son and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. 2017. Cleveland State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1494341009717745.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Lacy, Sarah. "Writing Through the Lower Frequencies: Interpreting the Unnaming and Naming Process within Richard Wright's Native Son and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man." Master's thesis, Cleveland State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1494341009717745

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

csu1494341009717745
585
© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Cleveland State University and OhioLINK.