Robert Stepto’s From Behind the Veil: A Study of Afro-American Narrative (1979) provides a thorough analysis of canonical texts across multiple generations of African-American literature, including, but not limited to, the works of: Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and Richard Wright. His analysis, which serves as the foundation for scholars of African-American literature such as Lawrence Rodgers and Farah Jasmine Griffin, provides insight to the narratives of personal quests for freedom and literacy, the conventions of the migration novel, and the cultural and social significance of the genre in relation to African-American literature.
Stepto establishes a timeline that chronicles the evolution of African-American narrative structures, …show more content…
Rodgers examines just how ascent and immersion go far beyond Stepto’s analysis by asserting that Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959), typifies the notion that “neither ascent or immersion is limited exclusively by the geographic designations suggested by the terms symbolic north and symbolic south, because each may also correspond to spatial movements occurring entirely within one geographic area” (33). In the case of Hansberry’s play, the Younger family debates the move from their home in the ghetto (in this case, a symbolic South) to their new home in a white community (ascent) that does not welcome them (immersion). Rodgers argues that most literary migrants struggle with ascent and immersion in the urban North mostly because of some oppressive internal or external conflict that serves as a barrier to ascension. This conflict is often another variation of Southern oppression, as it occurs perhaps out of the character’s inability to forgo his or her Southern identities and effectively assimilate into his or her new communities; moreover, these characters still hold on to their Southern customs when facing these conflicts, and those customs provide a retreat or outlet for dealing with the oppressive forces s/he encounters, which, too, provide a barrier to ascension. Rodgers notes that all migration fiction is that of ascent and immersion, and is in some way a measure of the characters’ search for a “livable home” in the North, which most often is “elusive and impossible”
Stepto establishes a timeline that chronicles the evolution of African-American narrative structures, …show more content…
Rodgers examines just how ascent and immersion go far beyond Stepto’s analysis by asserting that Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959), typifies the notion that “neither ascent or immersion is limited exclusively by the geographic designations suggested by the terms symbolic north and symbolic south, because each may also correspond to spatial movements occurring entirely within one geographic area” (33). In the case of Hansberry’s play, the Younger family debates the move from their home in the ghetto (in this case, a symbolic South) to their new home in a white community (ascent) that does not welcome them (immersion). Rodgers argues that most literary migrants struggle with ascent and immersion in the urban North mostly because of some oppressive internal or external conflict that serves as a barrier to ascension. This conflict is often another variation of Southern oppression, as it occurs perhaps out of the character’s inability to forgo his or her Southern identities and effectively assimilate into his or her new communities; moreover, these characters still hold on to their Southern customs when facing these conflicts, and those customs provide a retreat or outlet for dealing with the oppressive forces s/he encounters, which, too, provide a barrier to ascension. Rodgers notes that all migration fiction is that of ascent and immersion, and is in some way a measure of the characters’ search for a “livable home” in the North, which most often is “elusive and impossible”