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- Title
HISTORY IN RALPH ELLISON'S JUNETEENTH.
- Authors
Johnson, Loretta
- Abstract
This article presents information on novelist Ralph Ellison's second novel, "Juneteenth," echoes one of the crucial themes of his first-- how stories get told, whose stories should be told, and what history is to be believed. The title, selected by John F. Callahan, Ellison's literary executor, refers to the central section in which the characters remember their "Juneteenth rambles." "Juneteenth" stands for June 19, 1865, the day a Union garrison announced to slaves in Texas that they were free. A novel about liberation, Juneteenth explores much more than a day in history. It argues for the necessity to keep the past in the present, through celebration, an, and remembrance. The past, therefore, becomes the source of history, and history its art. This essay examines Ellison's art in Juneteenth, his personal and public past, grounded in African American culture and history in general. Not only Charles W. Chesnutt, Frederick Douglass, and jazz and popular folklore, but also Greek historians, Thomas Hobbes, T. S. Eliot, and Walter Benjamin have an impact upon his work.
- Subjects
JUNETEENTH (Book : Ellison); FICTION; NOVELISTS; ELLISON, Ralph, 1914-1994; JUNETEENTH; CHESNUTT, Charles W. (Charles Waddell), 1858-1932; SLAVERY; LIBERTY
- Publication
Studies in American Fiction, 2004, Vol 32, Issue 1, p81
- ISSN
0091-8083
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/saf.2004.0011