Search results for "defamiliarization and construction of racial categories"

Defamiliarizing Blackness and Whiteness in Gloria Naylor’s "Linden Hills"

2018

Gloria Naylor defamiliarizes in Linden Hills (1985) both white and non-white racial categories, in this case blackness and whiteness, both of which emerge as largely performable identities. The defamiliarization of blackness is fairly direct, unfolding mostly through the predominantly negative portrayal of Linden Hills residents and the male line of the Nedeed dynasty, especially Luther Nedeed IV. The defamiliarization of whiteness is mostly indirect, taking place primarily through the exposure of Linden Hills residents’ imitation of whiteness, in particular, the pursuit of what is presented as the negative paradigm of the white materialistic success and the disastrous consequences that ste…