Body Politics In C Olson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad

Colson Whitehead(1969-)is a prominent African-American author in contemporary American literature.He pays attention to the exploration of the history of American racism and its shadow in modern society.His representative work The Underground Railroad is widely acclaimed for its unique narrative techniques and profound themes.In this novel,through the story of Cora’s escape,the darkness of American slavery more than one hundred years ago is fully revealed.It exposes the cruel reality of slavery and racial oppression suffered by the blacks,and shows a series of problems of ideology,class,identity and so on that black Americans face in complex living conditions.Academic research on The Underground Railroad has been extremely enthusiastic since its publication.The issues of freedom,slavery,trauma,and race,as well as artistic methods such as narrative techniques used in novel writing,have piqued the interest of many scholars both at home and abroad.Obviously,race is a prominent topic in The Underground Railroad.Whitehead expresses racial oppression and resistance through the dimension of the body in this work,which endows the body with extraordinary significance.By employing Foucault’s theory of body politics,the author of the thesis attempts to analyze the racial oppression through three levels: ideology,class hierarchy,and racial identity,and at the same time reveal the process of the black people resisting oppression,seeking equality,and retrieving racial identity through the body.The thesis is divided into five chapters.The first chapter introduces Colson Whitehead’s literary achievements and his representative work The Underground Railroad,followed by a survey of the study of The Underground Railroad at home and abroad.Finally,this section introduces the thesis’ methodology and focus.The second chapter reveals,from aspects of ideology,class hierarchy,and racial identity,how the white rulers discipline,manipulate and control the black body by means of violence,state machine and power gaze,so as to spread the racial discourse.Furthermore,the plantation is divided into different classes,and the racist ideology of white supremacy is internalized in the minds of some black people,which leads to their loss of their own racial identity.The third chapter reveals the way and process by which the black community resist through their bodies.The body is not only a tool for racists to manipulate and control slaves,but also gives full play to its motility and becomes a site and weapon of resistance to break the bondage of slavery.The fourth chapter explores the political significance of the body.Physical resistance embodies the black community’s persistent pursuit of freedom and helps the blacks maintain racial unity.The resistance of the body dismantles the external binary of racist discourse,helps black people retrieve racial spirit and perpetuate it from generation to generation.The argument is summarized in the fifth chapter,which explains how class hierarchy and the loss of black racial identity are generated by the discipline of the black body in The Underground Railroad.In turn,the body of black people serves as weapon of resistance to bravely question racist discourse,deconstruct class hierarchy and retrieve racial identity.The Underground Railroad manifests the diversity and motility of the body,and is of great significance for questioning racist discourse,opposing racial oppression and building an equal and free society.