A Study Of The Underground Space And The Underground Man In The Man Who Lived Underground

The Man Who Lived Underground,a short story written by African-American writer Richard Wright(1908-1960),tells the experience of Daniels,a black young man,in the urban sewer.As an underground space that is both connected with and separated from the above-ground space,the sewer carries rich cultural and political connotations.Based on the spatial image of the urban sewer and the image of the underground man in the story,this thesis focuses on the living conditions of the urban black people as the marginalized man,the protagonist’s traumatic psychology and his ambiguous attitude toward his existence,and his acts of resistance.As a marginal space,the sewer has become a gathering place of the waste thrown away from the above-ground world,which symbolizes Daniels’ marginalized status in the world.Also in the sewer,Daniels realizes that the redemptive function of religion that the black group relies on is collapsed,and he chooses to run counter to his black community.The exclusion from the white society and the separation from his black community drive Daniels into the sewer as the only refuge.The nightmares and traumatic memoir of death in the above-ground world keep reappearing in the sewer,pushing Daniels to break through its confinement where fears accumulate.At the same time,his uncertainty of time and space in the sewer often makes him think about returning to the ground.The duality of the sewer serving as both refuge and uncanny place reflects the Daniels’ being of in-betweenness and his ambiguous attitude as well.In some degree,the sewer as a site of protest provides Daniels with an ideal place to fight against the white-dominated social hierarchy.Daniels’ transgression is embodied in theft and voyeurism through sewer holes.His theft evokes the reversal of white people’s claim of property,and his voyeurism implements the black’s counter-gaze at the white.Both acts reveal Daniels’ power of resistance.In The Man Who Lived Underground,Wright uses the urban underground space and the image of the underground man to fully present the living conditions,psychological world and resistance of the urban blacks.In this way,Wright fulfills the ultimate goal of African American writers,i.e.the integration of politics and literary artistic.Furthermore,he sets a model paradigm of the underground or subterranean narration in Africa American literature.