Bud,Not Buddy:Black Aesthetics In The Construction Of Cultural Identity

The purpose of this study is to elaborate the representation of black aesthetics in the construction of Bud's cultural identity,including linguistic representation and cultural representation by means of theories of cultural identity and black aesthetics,along with related studies on African American English.As an outstanding contemporary African American writer,Christopher Paul Curtis became the first African American writer to have won the Newbery Medal in 2000 due to the huge success of his novel Bud,Not Buddy.The setting of this novel is the Great Depression in the United States,the unemployment rate increasing and people living in distress.The novel mainly tells the story of a 10-year-old black boy who has overcome many kinds of difficulties to find his father.In the process,he finds the answer to the question of who he is and where he belongs to.The story ends with Bud's returning to his grandfather's band.This thesis is based on theories of black aesthetics,focusing on the construction of Bud's cultural identity,to explore the relationships between cultural identity and language,society,culture,and literature.Cultural identity is a matter of ‘becoming'as well as of ‘being'.It belongs to the future as much as to the past.It is not something which already exists,transcending place,time,history and culture.Cultural identities,like everything which is historical,undergo constant transformation.Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised past,they are subject to the continuous ‘play'of history,culture and power.The dialectical unity of continuity and development of the cultural identity can also be found in Bud,Not Buddy,in line with Curtis's construction of Bud's cultural identity.Meanwhile,black aesthetics is a powerful weapon for African Americans to fight against racial discrimination and fight for racial equality.Here “black” refers to not only the color black,but also the excellent cultural qualities of African American people,such as African American English,music,narrative style,cultural practices,oral tradition and so on.Black aesthetics has provided great inspiration and guidance for the creation of African American literature.Curtis critically inherited the literary elements advocated by the black aesthetists of the older generation and integrated part of the literary elements newly developed by the second generation to form a distinct narrative style,which has resulted in unprecedented success.Studying the role of black aesthetics in the construction of cultural identity contributes to better understanding the incentive of black literary creation and the profound connotation of the novel.Additionally,the qualities of the African American ethnic group embodied by Bud has universal revelation and practical significance for young adults who are growing in multicultural backgrounds and are faced with similar problems.