JAZZ TEMPORALITY AND NARRATIVE: A READING OF RALPH ELLISON'S INVISIBLE MAN
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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- abstract
- This thesis explores the complex relationship between jazz, temporality, and narrative form in Ralph Ellison's
Invisible Man . Although Ellison rejected the notion that he was a political writer, his novel still functions as a form of protest based on its narrative form which ultimately seeks to undermine traditional formulations of time. Specifically, Ellison's narrator, Invisible Man, controls his narrative by employing a unique temporal configuration to assert his subjectivity and to press against hegemonic structures intent on homogenizing individuals. This unique temporality borrows from traditional jazz and utilizes literary forms of swing, syncopation, and solo improvisation in an effort to protest the universalizing temporal modes of fatalism, determinism, and reversion. - subject
- Ellison
- Invisible
- Narrative
- Temporality
- Time
- contributor
- Still, Erica (committee chair)
- Maine, Barry (committee member)
- Franco, Dean (committee member)
- date
- 2013-06-06T21:19:23Z (accessioned)
- 2013-06-06T21:19:23Z (available)
- 2013 (issued)
- degree
- English (discipline)
- identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10339/38520 (uri)
- language
- en (iso)
- publisher
- Wake Forest University
- title
- JAZZ TEMPORALITY AND NARRATIVE: A READING OF RALPH ELLISON'S INVISIBLE MAN
- type
- Thesis