For all the scholarship devoted to Mary Shelleys English novel Frankenstein; there has been surprisingly little attention paid to its role in American culture; and virtually none to its racial resonances in the United States. In Black Frankenstein; Elizabeth Young identifies and interprets the figure of a black American Frankenstein monster as it appears with surprising frequency throughout nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. culture; in fiction; film; essays; oratory; painting; and other media; and in works by both whites and African Americans.Black Frankenstein stories; Young argues; effect four kinds of racial critique: they humanize the slave; they explain; if not justify; black violence; they condemn the slaveowner; and they expose the instability of white power. The black Frankensteins monster has served as a powerful metaphor for reinforcing racial hierarchymdash;and as an even more powerful metaphor for shaping anti-racist critique. Illuminating the power of parody and reappropriation; Black Frankenstein tells the story of a metaphor that continues to matter to literature; culture; aesthetics; and politics.
#1434177 in eBooks 2015-07-20 2015-07-20File Name: B0123Y5WPS
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