From Metaphor To Reality: Cora's Transformation And Initiation In The Underground Railroad

As a well-known African-American black novelist,Colson Whitehead has been praised as the “chameleon of literature”.His newest work The Underground Railroad has aroused wide attention after its publication and has won National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize.Published in 2016,The Underground Railroad tells of the initiation and transformation of Cora from the slaveholders' private property without self-awareness to an independent whole being.With the help and assistance of others and the efforts of her own in the ten-month escape,Cora gradually enters maturity and undergoes a triumphant transformation in identity and thought.At the last stop,Cora beats up the white supremacist slave-catcher badly and survives on her own account,unceasingly running to the west with her new companions for freedom.Based on black feminism and Alice Walker's womanism,the thesis focuses on what progress the protagonist gains,how she grows in the course of transformation and the realistic significance of her initiation from the perspective of Initiation Story and attempts to explore the distinctiveness of The Underground Railroad as an initiation story.The thesis elaborately interprets the thematic initiation,the collaborative initiation and the symbolic initiation in The Underground Railroad respectively from three aspects of the initiation story including contents,characters and structure.And in the end it discusses the initiation story The Underground Railroad in the tradition of African American female initiation story.The thesis arrives at the following conclusions through the analysis of Cora's initiation.Compared with the traditional initiation stories,the intersection of the protagonist Cora's initiation with American history,gender and race constitutes the mainline of the narration in The Underground Railroad.The Underground Railroad is not only one mere initiation story,but also an African American female initiation story tinged with womanism.From the angle of history,the Underground Railroad in a metaphorical sense in American history is turned into a literal train,which is a leading thread throughout Cora's escape.In terms of race,the novel elevates the individual's initiation to the nation's initiation to trigger the thinking about the race relations of current America.The open-ending,to some extent,conveys the author's disappointment and worries on the present issues of race in America.From the perspective of gender,The Underground Railroad inherits and develops the tradition of African American female initiation story.Cora's initiation and self-salvation supply reference and power for women of color in dire straits.Only self-awakening and rebel rescue black women from trouble.