2021-02-24 at 11:57:28
HOGAR NAJM ABDULLAH from University of Szeged, Hungary
will present 1950s Black Masculinity’s Dilemmas of (In)Visibility in Ann Petry’s The Narrows and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
Abstract
This paper highlights the ways Ann Petry’s The Narrows (1953) and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) showcase the dilemmas of African American men in accomplishing their masculinity due to either their hypervisibility or invisibility. Based on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s (2000) theory that the categories of race, gender and class create a site of intersectional invisibility for certain individuals, African American masculinity struggle with their sense of inability to make a balance between the hegemonic western ideals of masculinity and their racialized identities. To resist the grip of this intersection, Petry stresses out her main character’s facial features as being too attractive and too handsome; while, Ellison embraces a narrator whose physical features are almost invisible. I, thus, argue that this technique of marking out/off the physical features of their novels’ protagonists is one method Petry and Ellison rely on to challenge the stereotypical representations of black men in the 1950s.
In section
American Literature