American Trickster - Softcover

ZOBEL MARSHALL, EMILY

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1783481102 ISBN 13: 9781783481101

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021

Synopsis

Our fascination with the trickster figure, whose presence is global, stems from our desire to break free from the tightly regimented structures of our societies. Condemned to conform to laws and rules imposed by governments, communities, social groups and family bonds, we revel in the fantasy of the trickster whose energy and cunning knows no bounds and for whom nothing is sacred.

One such trickster is Brer Rabbit, who was introduced to North America through the folktales of enslaved Africans. On the plantations, Brer Rabbit, like Anansi in the Caribbean, functioned as a resistance figure for the enslaved whose trickery was aimed at undermining and challenging the plantation regime. Yet as Brer Rabbit tales moved from the oral tradition to the printed page in the late nineteenth-century, the trickster was emptied of his potentially powerful symbolism by white American collectors, authors and folklorists in their attempt to create a nostalgic fantasy of the plantation past.

American Trickster offers readers a unique insight into the cultural significance of the Brer Rabbit trickster figure, from his African roots and through to his influence on contemporary culture. Exploring the changing portrayals of the trickster figure through a wealth of cultural forms including folktales, advertising, fiction and films the book scrutinises the profound tensions between the perpetuation of damaging racial stereotypes and the need to keep African-American folk traditions alive. Emily Zobel Marshall argues that Brer Rabbit was eventually reclaimed by twentieth-century African-American novelists whose protagonists ‘trick’ their way out of limiting stereotypes, break down social and cultural boundaries and offer readers practical and psychological methods for challenging the traumatic legacies of slavery and racism.

About this title

About the Author

Emily Zobel Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University. She teaches courses on African-American, Caribbean, African and Black British literature. Emily is particularly interested in forms of cultural resistance and cross-cultural fertilisation in the face of colonialism. She has explored the role of trickster figures in Caribbean culture, history and literature in articles and book chapters published in The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives (2009) and Bonded Labour in the Cultural Contact Zone: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Slavery and Its Discourses (2010). Her book, Anansi’s Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance was been published by the University of the West Indies Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Publication date: 2021
• ISBN 10: 1783481102
• ISBN 13: 9781783481101
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 182