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The politics of visuality in Beloved and The Colour Purple
The brutal history of slavery in America makes literary engagement with slave experience a potent exercise. Contemporary writers seeking to engage with this history face many difficulties, writing in the wake of the traditional slave narrative which was characterised by limited perspective and relia...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of English Language and Literature
2017
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| _version_ | 1867613195462508544 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Roberts, Abby |
| author2 | Young, Sandra |
| author_browse | Roberts, Abby Young, Sandra |
| author_facet | Young, Sandra Roberts, Abby |
| author_sort | Roberts, Abby |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | The brutal history of slavery in America makes literary engagement with slave experience a potent exercise. Contemporary writers seeking to engage with this history face many difficulties, writing in the wake of the traditional slave narrative which was characterised by limited perspective and reliance on externally verifiable factors. This dissertation considers two works, Beloved and The Color Purple, by Toni Morrison and Alice Walker respectively, authors who write against the template of slave narratives by offering intimate and subjective points of view to inform the story-making process. Drawing on visual theory, I consider the politics of visibility, that is to say, the privilege and disempowerment manifest in visual relations. I examine the ways in which visuality extends the efficacy of Morrison and Walker's fictional project, by contributing to a narrative form which privileges the interior life of its characters. Through their story-making process, the novels of my study offer the opportunity both to challenge and to extend an understanding of the politics of visuality. I examine how the novels encourage alternative lines of sight which, by means of their investment in an interior perspective, unsettle a disempowering visual binary and suggest a way for contemporary authors to write into the narrative gaps of history. An alternative perspective offers insight into the imagined lives of obscured or marginalised people and, ultimately, brings a fraught history into view in a way that is life-affirming and empowering. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/25521 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:17.361Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publishDateRange | 2017 |
| publishDateSort | 2017 |
| publisher | Department of English Language and Literature |
| publisherStr | Department of English Language and Literature |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/25521 The politics of visuality in Beloved and The Colour Purple Roberts, Abby Young, Sandra English in Literature and Modernity The brutal history of slavery in America makes literary engagement with slave experience a potent exercise. Contemporary writers seeking to engage with this history face many difficulties, writing in the wake of the traditional slave narrative which was characterised by limited perspective and reliance on externally verifiable factors. This dissertation considers two works, Beloved and The Color Purple, by Toni Morrison and Alice Walker respectively, authors who write against the template of slave narratives by offering intimate and subjective points of view to inform the story-making process. Drawing on visual theory, I consider the politics of visibility, that is to say, the privilege and disempowerment manifest in visual relations. I examine the ways in which visuality extends the efficacy of Morrison and Walker's fictional project, by contributing to a narrative form which privileges the interior life of its characters. Through their story-making process, the novels of my study offer the opportunity both to challenge and to extend an understanding of the politics of visuality. I examine how the novels encourage alternative lines of sight which, by means of their investment in an interior perspective, unsettle a disempowering visual binary and suggest a way for contemporary authors to write into the narrative gaps of history. An alternative perspective offers insight into the imagined lives of obscured or marginalised people and, ultimately, brings a fraught history into view in a way that is life-affirming and empowering. 2017-10-04T14:23:02Z 2017-10-04T14:23:02Z 2017 Master Thesis Masters MA http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25521 eng application/pdf Department of English Language and Literature Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | English in Literature and Modernity Roberts, Abby The politics of visuality in Beloved and The Colour Purple |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | The politics of visuality in Beloved and The Colour Purple |
| title_full | The politics of visuality in Beloved and The Colour Purple |
| title_fullStr | The politics of visuality in Beloved and The Colour Purple |
| title_full_unstemmed | The politics of visuality in Beloved and The Colour Purple |
| title_short | The politics of visuality in Beloved and The Colour Purple |
| title_sort | politics of visuality in beloved and the colour purple |
| topic | English in Literature and Modernity |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25521 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT robertsabby thepoliticsofvisualityinbelovedandthecolourpurple AT robertsabby politicsofvisualityinbelovedandthecolourpurple |