The Postmodern Narrative Techniques In The Underground Railroad

Colson Whitehead is an African-American writer who has so far created six novels and two non-fiction works.In 1999,Whitehead published his debut Intuitionist,which attracted immediate attention.Since then,his continued excellent works have frequently established his position in the American literary world.Whitehead’s creation is wide in themes and styles.Harvard Magazine awarded him the title of “literary chameleon”.In August 2016,The Underground Railroad,a work of 16-year gestation,finally came out.The following “whirlwind of underground railroad” quickly swept over the United States.This novel won the 2016 National Book Award and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for its strong realism and allegory.As a writer with postmodern consciousness,Whitehead subtly integrates postmodern elements to the creation of the novel to reconstruct the history of American slavery.This also reflects the contemporary American intellectuals’ introspection on history and ethnicity.The creation of The Underground Railroad incorporates a variety of narrative techniques,of which postmodern narrative techniques are particularly prominent.The author skillfully incorporates postmodern narrative techniques into the creation of the novels,making the novel experimental,innovative and readable.In his struggle between imagination and reality,Whitehead combines the brutality of slavery with the escape of slaves and writes a “legendary” story pointing to the contemporary America.Taking postmodern narrative techniques as the theoretical framework,this thesis focuses on the skillful use of artistic methods such as shifting focalization,non-linear narrative,open ending,intertextuality and genre crossing in The Underground Railroad.The thesis mainly consists of three parts: the introduction,the body and the conclusion.The first part,also the introduction part,summarizes the author Colson Whitehead,his literary works,the main plot and writing background of The Underground Railroad,and the overseas and domestic research status.Finally,a brief introduction is given to the origin and development of postmodernism and the connotation and characteristics of postmodern narratives.The significance of interpreting this novel from the perspective of postmodern narrative techniques is also included in this part.The second part is the main part of the thesis with four chapters.Chapter One analyzes the usage of multiple narrative focalizations.Through analyzing the flexible conversion among zero focalization,fixed internal focalization,variable internal focalization,multiple internal focalization and external focalization in this novel,this thesis explores the evil of the slavery system and the darkness of society from different perspectives.Chapter Two explores non-linear narration and open ending.Non-linear narrative structure and time are fully applied in this novel.Analepsis,prolepsis and time-space intertwining appear alternatively in this novel.The linear narrative order of the novel is constantly interrupted.The juxtaposition of the secondary plot and the main line of the novel exerts a synchronic influence,which shows the spatial and fragmental feature of the narrative structure of The Underground Railroad;The open ending is the lime light of the novel.It embodies the inability to heal black wounds and their endless pursuit of freedom,but at the same time gives hope to black people.The open ending reflects the author’s innovative thinking on the end of the novel,and also on American society and history.Chapter Three focuses on the use of intertextuality in the novel.Whitehead uses intertextuality to provide readers with a multi-faceted perspective on text interpretation.The narrative elements such as mythological archetypes and historical facts in the novel not only reflect the dialogue relationship between the text and the text,but also reflect the personality and innovation of the author’s literary creation.Chapter Four first expounds the meaning of genre-crossing,and then analyzes the integration and application of various elements in The Underground Railroad.On the one hand,it is a historical novel whose creation is based on a large amount of literature research.On the other hand,it has some features shared with science fiction for its time and space intertwining.In this novel,elements like the underground railway,bad blood tests,skyscraper,elevator,assembly lines in the factory,and the Ragtime played by black musicians give people a sense of science fiction.At the same time,it also has the characteristics of picaresque adventure tale.The journey about the protagonist’s escape reflects the gap between the ideal vision and the naked reality.Through the eyes of the bottom of the society,a complicated and ugly world is presented before readers;At last,the novel combines the characteristics of Gothic novels to bring readers a horrible and mysterious reading experience.Multivariate genre not only realizes multiple expectations and uncertainties,but also provides more space for readers to participate in text interpretation,which brings the novel unique narrative functions.Finally,it is the conclusion part of this thesis.The Underground Railroad can be called a sample of narrative techniques,and the postmodernist narrative techniques are particularly prominent.These narrative techniques are set against each other to form a meaningful world.Postmodernist narrative techniques are used in The Underground Railroad,which not only highlights the theme of the novel,but also shows the author’s originality and the artistic charm of the novel.With the interlacing of time and space,Whitehead subverts the traditional grand narrative mode with his wild imagination,reconstructs and reproduces the hidden history of the black slaves in the form game of postmodern art,which reflects the author’s reflection on history in the new era of America and the high degree of uncertainty and freedom of postmodern art creation.