A Study Of Nonfiction Writing In Alex·Harley’s Roots

In 1977,the National Book Award Committee awarded Harry’s novel Roots the History Special Prize for his "non-fiction work of history".In the past thirty years,the western academic circle have been debating whether Roots is a strictly non-fiction novel,and the discussion on the stylistic nature of this work has far exceeded the attention on the content itself.Therefore,this paper will comprehensively describe and examine the non-fictional writing skills of Roots through the specific text,and reveal the attempts and efforts made by the non-fiction writing of Roots on the stylistic aesthetics and the reproduction of African-American history.The introduction mainly summarizes Alex Haley and his works,and reviews the current research situation at home and abroad.The main body of the paper is divided into 3 chapters.The first chapter starts with the historical origin of the word "non-fiction"and makes a theoretical exploration of the characteristics of non-fiction writing by means of literature research,comparative study and case analysis.By interpreting the typical non-fiction works in African-American literature,this part sorts out the development of "non-fiction" writing in African-American literature,and summarizes the characteristics of non-fiction writing in African-American literature.The second chapter,on the basis of theory,analyzes the non-fiction writing strategies of Roots from the perspective of writing by using the methods of text analysis and comprehensive induction.Combined with the historical and imagistic features of the language,this paper discusses the stylistic value of the non-fictional language in Roots.The paper argues that the historical language of Roots is not intrusive on the whole,and there is no clear causal relationship between languages and logic.This book’s imagistic language reflects the author’s thinking on the proposition that "rhetoric and truth coexist".The third chapter explores the process of the representation of American institutional racial discrimination from the perspectives of historical memory,historical figures and social space.This process in the novel has been evolving from a low level to a high level,and finally has become the basis of the operation of American politics,economy and society.The fourth chapter explores the value and significance of Roots’ non-fiction writing from the perspective of non-fiction literature and African American literature.The conclusion part summarizes the whole paper and expounds the practical significance of Roots’ non-fiction writing to reflect on the complex ethnic issues in the United States today.Alex Haley’s thoughts on historical language and historical narration are hidden behind the non-fiction writing strategy of Roots.Non-fictional historical language has subjective factors such as imagination and metaphor,but it can truly represent the historical reality of the black people.The non-fiction historical narrative is the restoration of the formation process of American institutional racial discrimination,rather than the subjective construction of the Black history and the relationship between the Black and the White.