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Loading... Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (original 1992; edition 1993)by Toni Morrison
Work InformationPlaying in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison (1992)
   Black Authors (274) No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) CaitlinMcC | Jul 11, 2021 |  ) dllh | Jan 6, 2021 | Morrison delivers a challenging read that's just as prescient and timely now as it was when it was printed in 1992. She never calls authors racist, but talks about examples from the works of Poe, Hemingway, Twain and more, and analyzes the way in which race is presented in their works. Her argument that there's a sort of persona that becomes an other, a contrast for protagonists and a fill in for danger or subjugation is especially compelling. My reading was impeded somewhat by not having read the works she was analyzing, and I would want to reread it to get the full impact and mull over her points more. Excellent reading for any student of American literature who would like to think more about how race is written. (  ) bell7 | Sep 4, 2019 |  ) boredgames | Aug 17, 2019 | In this brief yet powerful collection of essays, Toni Morrison looks at the American literature tradition and the ways it has incorporated and internalized racial language, as well as the ramifications of such. The author is such a brilliant and uncompromising presence, and her analyses ring just as true in 2016 as they did in 1992 when the book was published. Many of the points that Toni Morrison makes in this text are the same as the arguments made by supporters of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. When she discusses the ways that (and reasons why) modern readers try to write-off troubling racial aspects of literature, and why that discourse is problematic, she is mirroring the criticism of the "All Lives Matter" response. Many, especially those who are not engaged in critical intersectionality discourse, may find Toni Morrison's points shocking or wild. But becoming aware of the American literary traditions and their reflections of society, are necessary if the country is ever to move into a more free and tolerant sphere. ( ) BooksForYears | Jul 24, 2016 |
 In Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison argues that the "africanist" or black presence is inextricable from American history and therefore American literature, and in order to understand and interpret American literature one should not ignore this crucial presence of the oppressed souls of "sixty million and more" africana people who have died to give birth to America. Further she discusses that " the contemplation of this black presence is central to any understanding of our [American] national literature and should not be permitted to over at the margins of the literary imagination" (Playing 5). Although slavery has an important role in the history of socio-economic structure of all society for many years and slavery of in the New World was not a new phenomenon, but being enslaved due to skin color and race was a new thing altogether. Over centuries it has had a great impact on both oppressed and oppressor that being ignorant to it is almost impossible. Belongs to Publisher SeriesDistinctions
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison brings the genius of a master writer to this personal inquiry into the significance of African-Americans in the American literary imagination. Her goal, she states at the outset, is to "put forth an argument for extending the study of American literature ... draw a map, so to speak, of a critical geography and use that map to open as much space for discovery, intellectual adventure, and close exploration as did the original charting of the New World--without the mandate for conquest." Author of Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and other vivid portrayals of black American experience, Morrison ponders the effect that living in a historically racialized society has had on American writing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She argues that race has become a metaphor, a way of referring to forces, events, and forms of social decay, economic division, and human panic. Her compelling point is that the central characteristics of American literature--individualism, masculinity, the insistence upon innocence coupled to an obsession with figurations of death and hell--are responses to a dark and abiding Africanist presence. Through her investigation of black characters, narrative strategies, and idiom in the fiction of white American writers, Morrison provides a daring perspective that is sure to alter conventional notions about American literature. She considers Willa Cather and the impact of race on concept and plot; turns to Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville to examine the black force that figures so significantly in the literature of early America; and discusses the implications of the Africanist presence at the heart of Huckleberry Finn. A final chapter on Ernest Hemingway is a brilliant exposition of the racial subtext that glimmers beneath the surface plots of his fiction. Written with the artistic vision that has earned her a preeminent place in modern letters, Playing in the Dark will be avidly read by Morrison admirers as well as by students, critics, and scholars of American literature. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)810.9Literature English (North America) American literature History and criticism of American literatureLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.99)
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