A Critique Of African Americans’ Cultural Memory In Paul Beatty’s The Sellout

In October 2016,Paul Beatty,an African American writer,made history as the first American author to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for his fourth novel,The Sellout.The novel’s protagonist,Bonbon,seeks to revive slavery and segregation in his impoverished community,leading to his appearance before the United States Supreme Court.Through biting satire and austere humor,the novel reflects on the past and present realities of ethnic identity and highlights potential ways to reconstruct it.Domestic and foreign scholars have focused on Beatty’s use of language and literary techniques,as well as the racism and discrimination present in the post-racial era.This thesis intends to examine the cultural memory flaws among African Americans and investigate their consequences and root cause.It will reveal the racial and other social issues confronting contemporary American society in a new light and suggest methods for rebuilding cultural memory and ethnic identity.The thesis is divided into five sections.The first section briefly introduces Paul Beatty and The Sellout,summarizing the research results of domestic and foreign scholars and emphasizing the significance and structure of the study.The body of the thesis is divided into three chapters.The first chapter examines the flaws in African American cultural memory,including a gradual forgetting of their history of sufferings,as seen in the inability of representative artistic forms to increase ethnic cohesion and pride.The chapter also explores the lack of value orientation that guides their behavior.The second chapter examines the consequences of these cultural memory flaws,including the absence of “ethnic identity” and the “rootlessness” of African American culture.The chapter also analyzes the fundamental cause of these flawed cultural memories,namely the manipulation of African Americans by “color-blind racism”prevalent in American society.The third chapter proposes the need for rebuilding African American cultural memory to restore ethnic identity.It discusses specific measures,such as reshaping memory storage and functional memory,to restrengthen a sense of identity and pride in the ethnic group,while maintaining the value and dignity of African Americans.The final section,based on the summary of the entire thesis,presents the author’s stance on the racial issues facing the contemporary African American community.The seemingly pervert “racist” actions of the protagonist are an attempt to rediscover the“blackness” of the individual and the entire African American community.The author reminds African Americans of their eroding racial consciousness and helps them understand and explore their fate and path in the post-racial era.