The Gaze From The Gazed

Based on the gaze theory,this thesis analyzes the subject construction of Cora,the protagonist in the novel The Underground Railroad(2016)by Colson Whitehead,a prominent African-American novelist.It traces Cora’s change from the Other to the subject.Drawing its theoretical framework from different gaze theories,this thesis explores how Whitehead presents Cora’s transformation,her gradual awakening as a black female slave in the 19 th century.As a female slave,Cora withstands the racist and sexist gaze from white male slave owners.As she awakens,however,she begins to gaze back at them in the“oppositional gaze”,changing from the Other being gazed into a gazing subject.Gaze means looking at.In contemporary theories,it means the looking by the powerful.It is closely related to the operation of power,the tangle of desire and the consciousness of identity.Generally speaking,in such looking,the gazer is not only the subject of the act,but also the subject of power and desire,while the gazed at is made the Other by the looking of the Subject.In gazing,the relationship between the Other and the Subject is formed.Studies on gaze always cover social and cultural concepts such as power,identity and desire.In their early development,feminist and post-colonialist theorists have warred against the racial/white gaze and the male gaze in literary works.Later,they find that the relationship between the subject and the Other in the gaze is not stable,and it is quite possible that the Other may gain agency and change her state of being oppressed.She can construct herself as the gazing subject in the “oppositional gaze”.It is a way of subjectification.It works in Cora.When the novel begins,she is the Other being gazed at.In the eyes of the slave owners,she is just a labor machine under constant surveillance.For men,she is a sex object,a teenage girl who needs to be touched.As for the whites,she is the object to be looked at,some unhuman item in the museum.Always being otherized,she accepts the idea that she is the Other,an inferior and infamous black girl slave.She rejects to run away with Caesar because if she is not a slave,who can she be? Slave is her identity.Over time,however,Cora’s consciousness begins to awaken gradually.Through gazing outside exactly at that time,she becomes aware of the danger of being the Other,and sprouts the desire to be the subject,longing for living a life just like the white.The more she looks atthe world outside,the more clearly she is able to perceive the essence of the fact.Finally,she resists against all the oppressive gazes and successfully constructs her own as the subject through “oppositional gaze”.She dares to make eye contact with the slave owner and escapes from the plantation in the end.Confronting with men,she refuses to be the objectified woman.Gazing back at all the whites,she scares them away with her evil eyes.What she does manifests the rebellion of all the black female slaves represented by her: all of the black females are looking at “you”,too.There are six chapters in this thesis to analyze Cora’s subjectification from the Other to the subject.The first chapter briefly introduces the research background,research questions,objectives and methods,rationale and significance of the study,as well as the structure of the study.The second chapter intends to do a brief description of the literature review of gaze theories and this novel.Since the research and analysis of this thesis are completed under the guidance of gaze theories,the third chapter expounds on the theoretical framework of this thesis in detail.The fourth and fifth chapters are the main parts of this thesis.They mainly analyze the Other dilemmas that Cora faces in the situation of being gazed and the process of her self-construction as the subject.The fifth chapter focuses on Cora’s otherness in more specific details,highlights the process of her subjectification and emphasizes the study of how Cora constructs herself as the subject through “oppositional gaze”.The sixth chapter summarizes the major findings,implications and limitations,as well as further research plans of the study.