Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: New rhetorical strategies for the reader of the African American text

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of the most influential of contemporary African American literary critics, identifies a problem that exists in the reading of African American Literature: the narrow reading of African American texts. Gates maintains that critics as well as readers of African American texts have traditionally approached such texts by viewing only their socio-political contents resulting in an oversimplification of these texts. Gates' theoretical works ask for a new reading of African American texts, one that advocates that critics and readers begin to identify literary devices and techniques that are operating in these texts which are clearly unique to the black literary tradition. Gates suggests that this shift of focus will give African American texts a more comprehensive meaning and the place they rightfully deserve in relation to all other established literatures which promote and develop their literary traditions. Gates' theory of Signification identifies the literary technique of Signification which Gates claims exists in all African American texts. The application of Gates' theory to Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, proves that Signification does offer a new reading of African American texts, one that emphasizes their aesthetic value and one that verifies that African American authors inscribe a sense of tradition into their works.