The Violence Writing In John Wideman's Novels

John Edgar Wideman(1941—), who is one of the most important contemporary African-American writers, has written ten novels, four collections of short stories, a collection of micro stories, and four memoirs in his writing career for forty years. He has won more than a dozen awards with the famous ones being the PEN/Faulkner Award, the American Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle nomination. He has constantly won high praise from authoritative academic journals because of the strong sense of problem consciousness and exquisite art skills exhibited in his works, which gradually make him among the ranks of first-class writer.Violence is a prominent theme in Wideman's novels, such as in The Lynchers, The Hiding Place, Sent for You Yesterday, Reuben, Philadelphia Fire, The Cattle Killing, Two Cities, and the collection All Stories are True. The critical methods including social historical criticism, feminism, post-colonialism and literary ethics are used in analyzing the violence writing of the novels with multi-level and multi-angle to fully present the profound ideology in the novels. Besides, the relevant achievements in politics, sociology, criminology, national psychology are applied, which provides context and theoretical reference for this study and also makes it more academic.This dissertation is composed of six parts.The introduction outlines Wideman's life experiences including study, work and so on, summarizes the story of his ten novels and presents the status quo of research on Wideman at home and abroad, basing on which the research subject has been put forward—violence theme. Then, this part points out the significance of this research, such as expanding the research depth of Wideman, enriching and developing the study paradigm of African American literature and world literature, balancing the African American literature study, motivating people to reflect the racial liberation, the hegemony deconstruction and the construction of harmonious ethical relationship.The first chapter focuses on the black people's violence against white people in Wideman's novels, explores the formation mechanism and the essence expression of their violence. Violence is white people's commonplace way of persecuting black people in America history, while, in Wideman's novels, the black people execute violence on white people and the subjects and the objects undergo a fundamental reversal, which reflects their strategy and idea of "violence against violence." There are two causes of their violence, namely the black people's social reality and national psychology. In Wideman's novels, black people live in such social reality as the contrast between the rich and the poor under apartheid, the extreme poverty under economic exploitation, the absence of law protection and law executor's atrocity, which leads to the inevitability of their violence to get their interest and safeguard their life. Black people have owned repressed and rageful national psychology without place to vent in history. Until1960s, the Black Power Movement provides space for them to vent their repression and rage. The black people's violence against the whites in Wideman's novels is executed in this historical context, so their violence is the expression of their national psychology, the essence of which is to vent their racial hatred. Meanwhile, with the rise of their national consciousness, they are expressing their political points by violence—responding to the Black Power Movement, conforming to the political tide of the global anti-colonial movement in the mid-and late20th century, and expressing African American people's desire for power and equality.The second chapter focuses on black people's violence in their interior in Wideman's novels, makes an exploration to the social and cultural factors of their violence and reveals the essence of their violence. The violence in black people's interior in Wideman's novels can be divided into three categories:the violence between black men, the violence between two sexes, and the violence between generations. Wideman's novels reveal the essence of the violence between black men that is the manifesting of individual heroism, and point out that the survival environment of black underclass and the black intellectuals' alienation of black underclass are the causes of black men's violence. Meanwhile, the violence between black men in the novel reflects their psychological imbalance under the survival dilemma. As for black men's violence on black women, patriarchal ideology, extreme egoism, and the loss of ethics are the causes. Black women execute violence against black men due to black women's consciousness awakening, and their violence reflects the black women's subjectivity deepening. The intergenerational violence between blacks is caused by the existence of the plight of black fathers and mothers, reflecting the transfer of black people's racial contradiction and the expression of black women's unique love in face of the deterioration of social and ethical environment. Overall, it is considered in the novels that the violence in black people's interior is the transfer and digestion of the racial contradiction, while, black people's own problems, which are formed under the influence of the whites'value and racial contradiction, need be solved in emergency.Chapter three makes an exploration to black youths' violence in Wideman's novels, clarifies the background of the violence formation and uncovers the further issue highlighted in the violence writing. Wideman's novels has a shift in the1990s—mainly focusing on black youths'violence. The black youths' violence has become prominent American social problem from1970s to1990s, because of its rampancy and extremely vicious tendency. Wideman's novels reveal the background of their violence from their objective living environment and subjective perception. With regard to the objective living environment, they live in the family without fatherhood, and also live in the society with government hegemony, judicial distortion, violence culture and environment, which makes them lack of good family and social environment to support their safe survival and healthy growth, and forces them to rely on violence to vent anger, plunder resources, and join violent organizations. From the black teenagers' subjective perception, there is a deviation perception on the society management and the social reality, which encourages them to express their desire to rule the society by their own group. In fact, the youths'violence in Wideman's novels further highlights their education problems, namely the formation of right outlook on life and value, and emphasizes the importance of family education, school education and social education.Basing on the preceding three chapters about the discussion of the violence writing in Wideman's novels, chapter four discusses Wideman's outlook on history, politics behind his violence writing. Since Wideman has discussed the history and politics in violence writing, and also revealed the consequence of the violence, his outlook on history and politics can be clearly seen. In terms of history, Wideman thinks that black people should build their own version of history truth because of the falsity of official history, face and remember the humiliation and trauma in their history, but not vent the revenge with historical hatred. In addition, he affirms the mass violence in changing the historical process, and gives complete denial to the individual heroism violence. With regard to politics, he affirms the importance of the collectivism principle and black intellectuals in changing the destiny of black people, and explores the possibility of non-violent means, namely the construction of national culture, the use of legal means and ethical means. Wideman insists on racial freedom and equality, not only attacking "supremacy of white race," but also completely negating "supremacy of black race." He advocates racial integration in solving the racial problem, and also reveals the possibility of constructing harmonious relationship between blacks and whites.The conclusion systematically summarizes Wideman's points about violence writing with the following:Wideman is aware that black people's violence has been the commonplace social phenomenon and America's social issues since1960s. He attributes the root to the racism and the American social institution, while, reveals black people's own problems formed in racism, such as black men's ethical problems under the guidance of egoism concept and the extinction of black youths'human nature. When trying to solve the racial problem, he takes the combination of inside view and outside view:on one hand, he encourages black people to fight against racial oppression; on the other hand, he encourages black people to cultivate and grow on their own to establish harmonious relationships between genders, and the harmonious relationship between generations. Although he affirms the function of collective mass violence in changing the course of history, he doesn't mindlessly advocate the violence proposition, but stresses the practicality and the possibility of the construction of the national culture, the use of legal means and the moral influence in black people's real liberation and self-redemption. To conclude, he is looking forward to racial integration.This dissertation also thinks that his violence writing is the inheritance of the writing and the ideology of Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin, with the feature of eclecticism. Besides, by revising the predecessors' violence writing and idea, he forms his own uniqueness, namely the loyalty to humanity and harmony. Meanwhile, his violence writing and idea is the refutation to the writers in the Black Arts Movement, with the evidence that his violence writing emphasizes the co-existence of ideology and art technique, especially the pursuit of art technique. Lastly, Wideman's violence writing will bring important contemporary significance and inspiration to black people's real liberation, to China, America and the world full of regional conflicts.