Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
McKay, Claude, --1890-1948; Identity (Psychology) in literature;
Abstract
This thesis examines Claude McKay's three novels and his autobiography and develops the premise that together these writings represent an unsuccessful quest for black identity in a world dominated by Whites. With his characters, McKay explores various ways of opposing a life shaped by white, middle-class standards. Home to Harlem enables me to examine the situation of Blacks living in Harlem, contrasted with the home base for Blacks in his other works. Both protagonists, the uneducated Jake and the intellectual Ray suffer to different degrees from self-hatred and double consciousness. Neither of them succeeds in finding a place where he can live his own life free of oppression. With Banjo, McKay, as indicated above, expands the questions raised in his first novel to an international setting. With a set of black characters from all over the world he shows that discrimination against Blacks by western civilization is an omnipresent phenomenon. Although the two - protagonists are more self-confident than those of Home to Harlem, they are not able to find a home and thus choose vagabondage as an external manifestation of their spiritual homelessness. In his autobiography, A Long Way from Home, the author tells about his own experiences as a black writer, an individualist and a radical in a mediocre white world. Here his concentration is on all of Europe and North Africa. In his own life he faced the same problems with which the protagonists of his first two novels are confronted. Like these protagonists, McKay himself was always on the search for an environment free of oppression and remained spiritually homeless throughout most of his life. Banana Bottom is McKay's attempt to find a spiritual way home. He chooses Jamaica as a setting to show a young woman who finds her way back to her roots in spite of her European education. Although Banana Bottom is usually praised as McKay's best novel, it does not solve the problems raised in McKay's previous novels. Its solution lacks credibility and does not provide an answer for a growingly urban population of Blacks in the settings of the first two novels. The three novels and the autobiography reflect the fact that McKay tried, but was not able to find a way for people of African descent to find their identity in a world dominated by Western civilization. The fact that this sense of a void is so evident in all these works is the key to his aesthetic discipline and helps the reader to better understand his tenacious attempts, albeit not all successful.
Year of Submission
1995
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of English Language and Literature
First Advisor
Maurice Lee
Second Advisor
Theodore R. Hovet
Third Advisor
Raul Munoz
Date Original
1995
Object Description
1 PDF file (114 leaves)
Copyright
©1995 Angela Einberger
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Einberger, Angela, "Claude McKay’s Novels and His Autobiography as an Unsuccessful Quest for Identity" (1995). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2576.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2576
Comments
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