“A Dark, Abiding, Signing Africanist Presence” in Walker Percy’s Dr. Tom More Novels
Subject Area
Literary Criticism
Abstract
Many of the tropes, commonplaces, symbols, and values used and reflected by American literary works written by white authors, as Toni Morrison writes, are “in fact responses to a dark, abiding, signing Africanist presence." The black/white racial binary and racial différance that mark this presence inform the use of racialized characters as signifiers in the novels of Walker Percy. In the Dr. Tom More novels Love in the Ruins and The Thanatos Syndrome, Percy adopts racial symbolism as a means to critique the American notion of “the pursuit of happiness.” In Love in the Ruins, Percy pursues the notion of a Cartesian mind/body dichotomy in ways that parallel W. E. B. Du Bois’s notion of double-consciousness in African Americans. In The Thanatos Syndrome, Percy adopts a symbolism of slavery and freedom that reflects the experiences conveyed in slave narratives like those of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs as well as Du Bois’s thought on the “Sorrow Songs.” In both instances, Percy draws upon the signifying presence of people of African descent in America to offer a critique of historical and present American materialism and hypocrisy. Through an examination of the use of racial symbolism in these novels via the lens of African American commentary on the experiences he uses as metaphor and symbol, this paper reveals the ingenious undermining of racial hierarchy through the application of its symbols in Percy’s works.
Brief Bio Note
David Withun is a Ph.D. candidate at Faulkner University and a literature teacher at Savannah Classical Academy.
Keywords
Walker Percy, African American, novels, Southern, race
Location
Room 218/220
Presentation Year
2018
Start Date
4-5-2018 9:45 AM
Embargo
9-15-2017
Recommended Citation
Withun, David, "“A Dark, Abiding, Signing Africanist Presence” in Walker Percy’s Dr. Tom More Novels" (2018). South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL). 10.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/seccll/2018/2018/10
“A Dark, Abiding, Signing Africanist Presence” in Walker Percy’s Dr. Tom More Novels
Room 218/220
Many of the tropes, commonplaces, symbols, and values used and reflected by American literary works written by white authors, as Toni Morrison writes, are “in fact responses to a dark, abiding, signing Africanist presence." The black/white racial binary and racial différance that mark this presence inform the use of racialized characters as signifiers in the novels of Walker Percy. In the Dr. Tom More novels Love in the Ruins and The Thanatos Syndrome, Percy adopts racial symbolism as a means to critique the American notion of “the pursuit of happiness.” In Love in the Ruins, Percy pursues the notion of a Cartesian mind/body dichotomy in ways that parallel W. E. B. Du Bois’s notion of double-consciousness in African Americans. In The Thanatos Syndrome, Percy adopts a symbolism of slavery and freedom that reflects the experiences conveyed in slave narratives like those of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs as well as Du Bois’s thought on the “Sorrow Songs.” In both instances, Percy draws upon the signifying presence of people of African descent in America to offer a critique of historical and present American materialism and hypocrisy. Through an examination of the use of racial symbolism in these novels via the lens of African American commentary on the experiences he uses as metaphor and symbol, this paper reveals the ingenious undermining of racial hierarchy through the application of its symbols in Percy’s works.
