A Study Of Sunrader’s Identities From The Perspective Of Postcolonialism

Juneteenth is African-American writer Ralph Ellison’s last novel, which takes him as long as forty years. But this novel doesn’t come into being until his literary legacy executor John Callahan reorganized it in 1999. Ellison shows his profound meaning in it, and analyzes the racial discrimination imposed on the blacks in 1950 s, which causes a lot of severe social conflicts between the white and the black. From the first to step on the North American land, the blacks are struggling for their survival. On the one hand, they are alien to their own black culture; but on the other hand, they are learning new language and culture. After the Civil War, even though the black people had obtained the celebration on Juneteenth Day, they did not gain real freedom in society.This thesis is composed of six parts, including an introduction and conclusion. In the first part, there are three points including the brief introduction of Ralf Ellison’s life, his masterpiece Juneteenth, and literary review in China and aboard. Though Juneteenth was well received by the public, we can hardly see the interpretation from the perspective of postcolonialism. Therefore, this thesis attempts to analyze the protagonist’s identity searching from the perspective of postcolonialism, which will help us to the understanding of cultural diversity and hybridity. And it is very important to melt the race boundary between “whites” and “blacks” in America.Chapter One introduces the theory on which the paper is based, including the brief introduction of the theory of postcolonialism and some postcolonial notions. These days, postcolonialism is different from the past that was slaved and exploited by whites, turning into a new form: cultural aggression that is an invisible spiritual torture.Chapter Two makes an analysis of the protagonist Sunraider’s identity lost. In the novel, the hero Sunraider claims to be a white, but in fact, he is Bliss, a mixed-blood boy, brought up by Hickman and blacks in the community. First, Sunraider meets a white woman proclaiming to be his mother on Juneteenth Day, which leads him to realize the differences between him and the blacks living with him in appearance. After that, he determines to betray his black father Hickman to search for his white mother(a symbol of white culture).Chapter Three discusses the protagonist Sunraider’s journey of identity searching. Firstly, through showing his childhood in black community and his communication with Hickman, it implies his lost in black identity and his refusal to responsibility for the blacks.Chapter Four focuses on the process of the protagonist Sunraider’s identity reconstruction. Bliss is squeezed out of the identification of African culture to evade his black identity-the consequences of white domination in the colonial period. 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. In the end, Sunraider awakens from his wrong searching for identity and thus gains the real freedom.The last part, in the novel Juneteenth, Ellison shows a hopeful way for blacks to search for identity on the basis of recognition of black culture. Only in this way can they gain real freedom and equality. Through analyzing Sunraider’s growing up journey from self-loss, self-quest to self-reconstruction, Ellison discloses the identity crisis of Sunraider as a “hybridist”, which amounts to the race crisis for all the people living in the marginalized society. In post-colonial period, every one of us has to face the problem as that of blacks, but we could build a society with love and compassion to deal with the racial injustice. As Homi Bhabha’s hybridity concepts, colonialization must lead to the hybridity of culture and blood, the same as the mixed-blood identity of the protagonist Sunraider in Juneteenth. In the multicultural society, the term “melting pot” has changed into a new notion “hybridity”, which is interweaving culture and race, and has a significant meaning for the blacks in the shadow of racial stereotype.