Arduous Returning

Since their first step on American land, the black people can not evade the racial problem. After the Civil War, even though the black people have obtained the celebration on Juneteenth Day, they do not gain real freedom in society. Even in contemporary America, the condition is worse with blacks who live as Diaspora.Living in post-colonial period, the black people are inflicted with another form of exploitation which is cultural aggression besides the plunder of materials and of labor. The dominant culture oppresses and forces the black race to run out of the conscious foundation of the recognition of its national culture. Under this condition, the black race faces a serious issue of identity. The condition gets worse with hybridists, who form a special group in the black community as well as in society. It is crucial for the black people to search for the true identity, and meanwhile to be real Americans and masters of themselves.As a famous African-American writer who has made great contribution to both African-American and even American literary world as a whole, Ralph Ellison analyzes the importance of identity searching in modern times by telling a story about how a hybridist Bliss, and later Sunraider loses himself in his search for identity to be an American as well as a human being in his second novel Juneteenth. Moreover, different from what has stated in his first novel Invisible Man, Ellison takes a further step in Juneteenth to illuminate the importance of the fact that the black culture has melted into mainstream American culture. It means that the people in society, no matter what color they have, are somehow black, and are Americans.From the perspective of Post-colonialism, this thesis deals with how the character Sunraider searches for his true identity in society in post-colonial period.First, it is obvious that the mysterious story develops around two characters, Hickman, an old black priest, and Sunraider, who claims to be a white racist but as a matter of fact, who is a black, brought up by Hickman and his black people with love. It should be noticed that Sunraider is named Bliss by Hickman in his childhood. In the novel Hickman stands for the true black identity, who is intelligent, skilled at words, and who is filled with love. He is a man of many talents. Senator Sunraider is the symbol of the whites who oppose and hate blacks. He is the target of Hickman's love, but he chooses to return the love with betrayal and humiliation. We can not ignore little Bliss, who could be considered to be the most important figure in the novel, for he is the link between Hickman and Sunraider. Bliss is the hope of the unity of the two races and of the two cultures.Second, the thesis traces Bliss' betrayal and running away from his true identity because of the loss of cultural basis. From the beginning of slavery till today, blacks have been caught in the plight of racism. Under the condition of post-colonialism, blacks face the danger of losing their national cultural foundation. In this way, blacks are confronted with the danger of losing identity in the complicated society. Bliss starts to face the danger on the day of Juneteenth when he sees the aggressive power of the white culture and the weakness of the black people. Under the wrong leadership of being an American by way of recognizing with the aggressive power, Bliss steps on a road to search for identity by denying his national culture and by denying his people to become Senator Sunraider.Last, Bliss is squeezed out of the identification of black national culture to evade his true identity, who has turned into white Sunraider to deny his people. However, man has to face his national culture to find a true ego in order to be a true self who owns humanity in the complex world. On the deathbed of Sunraider, under the call of Hickman's love, memory summons the past to tell him the essence of being an American and of being a human being. In the end, Sunraider wakes up from his wrong searching for identity and thus gains the real freedom, who is redeemed to be reborn as blissful Bliss.Through the novel Juneteenth, Ellison shows a hopeful way for blacks to search for true identity on the basis of recognition of black national culture. Only in that way can they be real Americans and human beings. To be universal, in post-colonial time, human beings face the same problem as that of blacks. Humankind can search for identity in the complicated world, and build a new world of love and compassion.