On Collective Memory Between Father And Son In Juneteenth

Juneteenth is Ralph Ellison’s last novel. Juneteenth, which starts from1950s and tracesback to1860s, explores African Americans’ experience of struggling for equality, democracyand freedom in almost one hundred years. White Americans criticize African Americans forbeing without past or tradition, but Ellison puts African Americans’ history in the wholeAmerican history, and links them with African Americans’ tradition, black folklore and theBible, whereby Ellison proves that African Americans have a long history. African Americansnot only keep memory and tradition of the slave period, but also find root in Africa throughmemory activities. Therefore, John Callahan, the editor of Juneteenth, compares it to achronological epic.This thesis applies the theory of collective memory to analyze the influence on fatherand son exerted by their collective memory, demonstrates the necessity of preserving memoryin modern times, supplies the reference for modern Americans to make up for the lack ofmemory and resolves their conflict of identification due to the insufficiency of memory. Onthe one hand, the father and son in Juneteenth refer to actual characters, the black preacherHickman and his white-skinned adopted son Bliss. On the other hand, they refer to symbolicfather and son, that is, Hickman and black community stand for the black father while Blissrepresents the white child; Africans as ancestors while Hickman and Bliss as descendants.This thesis discusses three aspects of collective memory between father and son such asits conflict, communication and extension. The first part analyzes the conflict of collectivememory between father and son, including Hickman’s individual memory against Bliss’sindividual memory, the collective memory of black community against Bliss’s individualmemory, and black people’s collective memory represented by Hickman against whitepeople’s collective memory represented by Bliss. The descendants’ actions of escapingresponsibility and refusing past identity are direct reasons for the conflict of collectivememory between father and son, whereas the struggle between black culture and whiteculture is the underlying reason. The second part analyzes the way that father and soncommunicate with each other and resolve the conflict by habitual movement developed inblack community, by the communicative way of African American English and by rituals. Thus, there is mutual promotion between the communication of memory and consolidation ofmemory. The communication of collective memory between father and son transformsconflict into normalization, which is helpful for the consistency of memory and stability ofidentity. The third part analyzes the extension of collective memory between father and sonwith regard to scope and the development of its connotation. The extension illustrates that thepast revives by the plasticity of collective memory between father and son. The collectivememory between father and son assists either of them in getting self identity and a sense ofbelonging.Through exploring the collective memory between Hickman and Bliss, this thesis arguesthat Ellison aims at preserving and inheriting African American history together with AfricanAmerican culture by creating Juneteenth. The inheritance of African American history andculture has great influence on Americans for maintaining their social and cultural identity.The collective memory between father and son enable them to perceive things from theother’s perspective, to meditate and understand the past. In this process, both father and songet adscription of culture, self identity and personal values.