The Porosity of Human/Nonhuman Beings in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Anansi Boys

Abstract

By making use of atypical representations of familiar mythologies, author Neil Gaiman explores how traditional narratives, associated with specific peoples, have as a result of global human movements taken root and transmogrified in their new environments. While his invocation of animistic presences as a means to discover/recover the personal and genealogical histories of his characters is extensively explored in American Gods (2001), Anansi Boys (2005) intensifies this exploration by focusing its narrative on a specific cultural group. This paper examines Gaiman’s use of animism, not only to explore the cultural/spiritual pastiche of postmodern America, but also to reclaim traditional cultures from their histories of colonisation and challenge the human-nature dichotomy.