The Growth Of African American Women In Cane River From The Perspective Of Ritual Liminality

Cane River is a documentary novel about the family history of the contemporary African American female writer Lalita Tademy.Tademy describes the rich rites of passage and important incidents of the protagonists,including the first Communion,wedding,childbirth,funeral,moving house,physical and psychological hurts.Each time they experience these transitional periods,they undergo changes and grow.Arnold van Gennep,in terms of anthropology and folklore,divides the complete procedure of a rite into three symbolic stages: “separation— transition/ liminality—aggregation”.Among them “liminal period” is the transitional phase that connects a ritual subject’s former state with the latter state.Gennep’s scheme creatively subdivides a ceremony with periodical characteristics.Victor Turner then,based on the changes of the ritual subjects in attribution to certain social structures and cultural networks in three phases,puts forward that this mode presents dynamic changes of “structure—anti-structure— structure”.The theories of “three phases” and “three structures”demonstrate that a person can get through liminality to achieve growth.This thesis studies Cane River from the perspective of ritual liminality based on the liminal beings’ two traits of growth and anti-structure.The research finds that all sorts of Liminality are turning points for African American Women’s Growth.The heroines change and grow in growth-type liminality by reconstructing their identities,looking for external guidance,and getting mature psychologically.Besides,through anti-structural liminality,the African American females progress and grow from enduring the oppression of slavery to criticizing and challenging the social ideology.Liminality in people’s lives is very significant since the transitional periods provide them with opportunities to adjust their course of growth and even change their fates.Only when liminal beings fully exert their subjective initiative and constantly strive can they make liminality become a favorable turning point for their growth instead of a barrier.