Playing in the DarkAn immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race—and promises to change the way we read American literature—from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner Morrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree--and that came to serve white authors as embodiments of their own fears and desires. According to the Chicago Tribune, Morrison "reimagines and remaps the possibility of America." Her brilliant discussions of the "Africanist" presence in the fiction of Poe, Melville, Cather, and Hemingway leads to a dramatic reappraisal of the essential characteristics of our literary tradition. Written with the artistic vision that has earned the Nobel Prize-winning author a pre-eminent place in modern letters, Playing in the Dark is an invaluable read for avid Morrison admirers as well as students, critics, and scholars of American literature. |
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African-American Africanist characters Africanist persona Africanist presence ain’t American Africanism American literature American writers assumption becomes Bernard Bailyn black characters black man’s black population Bluest Eye Cardinal’s Cather Catherine child Colbert color construction critical geography Cubans cultural dark described difference Dunbar Ernest Hemingway escape exploration Faulkner’s fear female fiction figure freedom fugitive Garden of Eden Gold-Bug half-savage world Harry Harry Morgan Harry’s Hemingway’s Huck human images intellectual language linguistic literary criticism literary discourse literary imagination male Marie meaning meditation metaphorical mistress moral mother Nancy Nancy’s narrative narrator national literature nigger novel nurse one’s Playing Poe’s political presence of black race Rachel racism reader reification relationship response Return to text romance Sapphira scholarship seems sexuality silence Slave Girl slavery Snows of Kilimanjaro social story strategies T. S. Eliot Till’s TONI MORRISON violence Wesley William Styron women