Gates focuses the majority of his analysis on comparing the parodies of Ellison and Wright, as well as Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo. Gates then examines the use of signification in multiple authors’ works, including Hurston, Wright, Ellison, and Reed. The signifier then repeats what someone said about a third person in order to trick that person and reverse the current situation. The Signifying Monkey is the signifier who “wreaks havoc” on the signified through double-talk, making fun of a person, or speaking through gestures and expressions. He states that the archetypal signifier is the Signifying Monkey, a trickster figure viewed as a mode for story narration.
Gates introduces the African American discourse version of signifying as literary forms, including repetition and pastiche, based on cultural actions and traditions that produce blackness in literature.
0 kommentar(er)
