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White fears and fantasies: writing the nation in post-abolition Brazil and Cuba
Descriptive
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Title
White fears and fantasies: writing the nation in post-abolition Brazil and Cuba
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Nash
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Lyle Scott
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Lyle Scott Nash
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Stephens
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Thomas
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Thomas Stephens
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chair
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Marcone
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Jorge
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Jorge Marcone
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Stevens
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Camilla
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Camilla Stevens
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Kim
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Advisory Committee
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Kim Butler
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Rutgers University
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Graduate School - New Brunswick
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theses
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2008
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2008-05
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English
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electronic
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vii, 216 pages
Abstract
This dissertation discusses the literary representations of Afro-descendants in mid- to late-nineteenth century Cuba and Brazil, and how these representations impacted the development of the national narratives and mapped out the future social terrain for blacks and whites in both countries. This work evaluates Doris Sommer’s assertion that novels can serve as attempts to consolidate national identity, and that they help bind disparate groups in the formation of new nations. I use her model of “Foundational Fictions” to analyze the development of the national narratives in Cuba and Brazil, two nations with deeply-rooted histories of slavery, large slave populations, and late abolition of slavery. Novels by Cirilo Villaverde and Aluísio Azevedo were chosen as representative examples because of the dominant roles that Afro-Cubans and Afro-Brazilian play in their narratives. If literary unions symbolized unions between antagonistic social cadres, erasing social distinctions, then testing the model’s ability would be most useful in nations with large Afro-descent populations; the results of the analysis were negative. All unions between whites and Afro-descendants delineated in the novels were marked with tragedy and death, resulting in failures I call “Foundering Fictions.” These novels accentuated differences between Afro-descendants and whites and ideologically informed the nascent social institutions of the new republics. Therein, they served to attenuate the oppression of Afro-descendants in both countries.
This work discusses the deployment of stereotypes in the corpus novels, and the key role they play in the formation of prejudice, by arguing that prejudicial treatment is less motivated by belief than by practical benefits such as power and wealth. It also considers the historical development of race thinking and its relation to the justification of slavery in the corpus texts. Additionally, the thesis focuses on the social role of the mulatto during this period of shifting narrative perspectives discusses the multifaceted representation of the mulatto. Finally, it analyzes the ironic tendency of white writers to depict the white population as victims of slavery and the efforts of those writers to rewrite the history of slavery in order to inhibit the social progress of their Afro-descent contemporaries.
This work discusses the deployment of stereotypes in the corpus novels, and the key role they play in the formation of prejudice, by arguing that prejudicial treatment is less motivated by belief than by practical benefits such as power and wealth. It also considers the historical development of race thinking and its relation to the justification of slavery in the corpus texts. Additionally, the thesis focuses on the social role of the mulatto during this period of shifting narrative perspectives discusses the multifaceted representation of the mulatto. Finally, it analyzes the ironic tendency of white writers to depict the white population as victims of slavery and the efforts of those writers to rewrite the history of slavery in order to inhibit the social progress of their Afro-descent contemporaries.
Note
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Ph.D.
Note
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Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-214).
Subject
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Topic
Spanish and Portuguese
Subject
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Topic
Blacks in literature
Subject
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Topic
Brazilian fiction--19th century
Subject
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Topic
Cuban fiction--19th century
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Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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rucore19991600001
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http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.2/rucore10001600001.ETD.17090
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ETD_908
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doi:10.7282/T35H7GNS
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NjNbRU
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Geographic
Cuba
Subject
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Geographic
Brazil
Genre
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ETD doctoral
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Rights
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Open
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Lyle Nash
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Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
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I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
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