Magical Realism in Neo-Slave Narratives: an Analysis of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad

Abstract

‘Slavery resonates in the entire oeuvre of African American literature’ according to Timothy Spaulding. The subject of slavery being explored in so-called neo-slave narratives. These are contemporary novels that use or reinvent features from original slave narratives to emphasize the continued effects of slavery in the present.

A recurring theme in neo-slave narratives is the presence of magical or supernatural elements that are interwoven into an otherwise realistic story. These novels are written in the genre of magical realism, a term that has been discussed for decades by the people such as of Alejo Carpentier, Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, and Amaryll Chanady.

This thesis examines two neo-slave narratives in the magical realism genre (Toni Morrison's Beloved and Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad) and analyzes the use of the magical or supernatural elements in the novels.