Human Waste Down the SewerThe Racist Abnormalities of US Life in Richard Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground

  1. Martín Fernández Fernández 1
  1. 1 Universidade da Coruña
    info

    Universidade da Coruña

    La Coruña, España

    ROR https://ror.org/01qckj285

Revista:
Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos

ISSN: 1133-309X,  2253-8410

Ano de publicación: 2023

Número: 27

Páxinas: 231-250

Tipo: Artigo

DOI: 10.12795/REN.2023.I27.14 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAcceso aberto editor

Outras publicacións en: Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos

Resumo

This article examines the mechanisms that white supremacists apply to conceive of Black people as human waste, and the strategies to counteract them, in Richard Wright’s 2021 posthumous work The Man Who Lived Underground. The novel narrates the story of Fred Daniels, a young African American man who suffers the harshest aspects of Black life in mid-twentieth century New York City. Leaving work on a Saturday evening, Daniels is arrested on the street by three white police officers, and severely brutalized at the police station. Falsely accused of murder, and forcefully transformed into human waste, the protagonist manages to escape to the sewer system of the Big Apple, undergoing a surreal experience amid the filth and darkness of the tunnels that makes him ponder on the abnormalities of aboveground human relations.

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Fonte de datos: Dialnet