Show and Tell: African-American writing and changing society through narratives

The aims of this thesis are to examine how race and racial issues are approached in The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, how the writers approach the role of being African-American writers, and how the novels attempt to affect society through their narratives. This will be done through first examining relevant theory. The focus will be on narratives and ideology, approaches to race, a look at the development of African-American writing and writers, and the current academic debate on the two novels. This will be followed by a close reading of the individual novels as well as a comparative reading of the novels. In total, this will provide the basis for answering the research questions. Thomas has a more essentialist approach to race and follows Langston Hughes in the view that it is the responsibility of African-American writers to uplift African-American people, while Ward follows a constructivist perspective on race and although somewhat uplifting African- American people is more in line with Zora Neale Hurston’s view of being a writer first. The portrayal of racial issues follows the perspective of race. The essentialist approach shows racial issues in a somewhat simplified version and in a vacuum, while a constructivist approach shows racial issues as interconnected with other social issues in a way that is more complex and multilevel and expecting a more thorough understanding from the reader . Thomas has written a novel aimed at educating a new generation toward political awakening. Ward’s novel is less direct and instead shows the reader the issues present in society and expect them to see a need for change after being exposed to the complexity of existing issues that magnify each other