A Stufy Of The Protest Writing Of Black People In Colson Whitehead’s Novels

Colson Whitehead(1962-),one of the most representative writers in the post-racial era of African-American literature.The Underground Railroad makes him became the first novelist of the 21 st century to win both the best novel award of the National Book Award(2016)and the Pulitzer prize for fiction(2017)with the same novel,and then enter the view of Chinese readers.The discussion of race is still the most important topic for the African-American writers in the post-racial era.Many critics agree that the ethnic minority and white people mix but unequal in the post-racial era of the United States.The race issues are no longer simple characterized by obvious racial discrimination,but turned into by respecting ethnic heterogeneity to reach the goal of prove the rationality of the mechanism of unfair,it’s reflected in the behavior of the individual,cure in the course of society and history.This so-called “respect” is not the respect for black people as“human being”,but the superficial respect for them with special skin color,so the racial issues in the post-racial era become more obscure,complex and intractable.Faced with the change of the manifestation of racial issues,Whitehead insisted on reflecting and discussing them in a creative and innovative way.Whitehead’s six novels are consistent.On the basis of respecting and inheriting black culture and literary tradition,focusing on the life situation,psychological state and race relations of black people in the United States,and re-creating the theme of black people’s protest.He uses irony,parody and other narrative methods,through different background of the levels to explore the racial problems,no longer limited to theformulation of the conclusion,putting the protest in the black diversity and uncertainty,mining the possibility about future from history,and then implementing in the current protests,highlighting the significance of black fighting racism.The thesis is divided into four parts.The introduction makes a brief introduction to Whitehead and his novels,summarizes the research status and existing problems of Whitehead’s novels at domestic and abroad,and indicates the significance and purpose of the research.Then,the thesis sorts out the black literary tradition of the protest writing and defines the meaning of the post-racial era.The first chapter of the thesis discusses the ideological care for black people’s protest in whitehead’s novels.Whitehead’s ideological care for black people undoubtedly continues the attention paid to black tradition and cognitive ability in black literature;on the other hand,due to the understanding of the change in the form of racism,ideological basis of the black people themselves has become the fundamental condition for them to know themselves and ensure their survival and development in the post-racial era.Therefore,the spiritual source of the characters in the novels mostly comes from the black people’s own factors such as history,culture,tradition,group and education.The second chapter discusses the necessity,introversion and group characteristics of black people’s protest in Whitehead’s novels.In the novels,Whitehead argues that it’s necessary for black people to fight against racism,only by fighting against racism can they change the existing situation of racism;and emphasizing group unity and believed that protects could only grow and develop under the guidance of leaders and support of groups,and they could not hope that the transformation and kindness of white racists.The third chapter discusses the writing characteristics of black people’s protest in Whitehead’s novels.Whitehead’s novels are actually a parody and reconsideration can be summarized as subversion and development,and summarized the writing characteristics of black protest under the construction of black history discourse in Whitehead’s novels from the introversion and universality.The conclusion of this paper points out that Whitehead’s novels are not only the survival philosophy of the black,but also a reflection on the fate of the disadvantaged group inthe world.