Abstract
The paper discusses the novel “Rebel Yell” by the popular African American writer Alice Randall, in which she goes back to recent American history trying to understand the tendencies in the attitudes of Afro-Americans that were determined by the turbulent events of the 1960s–70s on the example of the novel’s protagonist Abel Jones. Memory, which is present in the reminiscences of Randall’s characters, helps to reveal the gap between the reality and people’s expectations that explains human traumas and accounts for the split in people’s psyche. The novel delves into the problems of a person who is torn between two communities – black and white, trying to adapt to the norms of the white middle class, which results in a disaster. Key themes of the novel are discussed, and an outline of central events that contributed to the transformation of the protagonist’s character is given. A link between the recent US past and the complex present is drawn. Keywords: contemporary African American novel, the roaring 1960s, the Civil Rights movement, race relations.
Highlights
The novel “Rebel Yell” (2009) by Alice Randall, the famous African American writer, prize winner of a number of prestigious literary prizes, addresses the present and the recent past and deals with the social and political life in the USA since the time of the Civil Rights movement to the election of the first Black President Barack Obama.Randall has already made her name starting with the scandalous novel “The Wind Done Gone” (2001) when she was accused of plagiarism by the Margaret Mitchell Fund
It was considered that the writer made use of situations and motives of the most popular American novel
The author agreed to make a considerable donation to Morehouse College in Atlanta
Summary
The paper discusses the novel “Rebel Yell” by the popular African American writer Alice Randall, in which she goes back to recent American history trying to understand the tendencies in the attitudes of Afro-Americans that were determined by the turbulent events of the 1960s–70s on the example of the novel’s protagonist Abel Jones. Memory, which is present in the reminiscences of Randall’s characters, helps to reveal the gap between the reality and people’s expectations that explains human traumas and accounts for the split in people’s psyche. The novel delves into the problems of a person who is torn between two communities – black and white, trying to adapt to the norms of the white middle class, which results in a disaster. Key themes of the novel are discussed, and an outline of central events that contributed to the transformation of the protagonist’s character is given.
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