Rewriting the Female Self through Backstage Discourse in Contemporary Neo-slave Narrative: An Analysis of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (2016)

Abstract

Whereas the tradition to subvert white representations of black femininity dates back to Harriet Jacob’s historic narrative, black women have either been absent or mentioned en passant in the slave narratives written by African American male writers. In the same vein, while the contemporary African American men’s neo-slave narratives portray black men as protagonists, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (2016) accords central position to black women. This article critically analyzes Whitehead’s narrative through the lens of James C. Scott’s notion of Infrapolitics (2008) and bell Hooks’s theorization of self-recovery (2015) to argue that black women counter white racist structures of domination and reclaim their selves through deploying oppositional discourse as strategy for resistance. This paper significantly departs from the existing scholarship on neo-slave narratives that has focused on the oppressed and subjugated position of black women under slavery and critically analyzes the oppositional and liberatory struggle of black women to attain self-recovery. The paper argues that black women use infrapolitical strategies and backstage discourse as acts of resistance to challenge their subordinated representation and find a voice to heal their oppressed selves. The protagonist’s struggle in the novel to attain freedom from racist and patriarchal structures and create a space for herself defines her role as a dissenting subject.