Colson Whitehead

those who advance from lower societal positions often encounter harsh judgment by those who remain in the original social class. Additionally, when people achieve a new social status, the new social class hesitates to accept the outsiders. Colson Whitehead addresses the struggle with negotiations many black men encounter as they try to navigate a balance between their past, commonly a life of poverty and crime, with their future, a comfortable life with money and success. In Whitehead’s novel…

Zombies Yesterday, Zombies Tomorrow, Zombies Forever For every leading character in a story, there is something that acts against them. As with "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville and Zone One by Colson Whitehead, the main characters both face similar antagonists. Both set in New York City, these two pieces of literature share many parallels. But the biggest similarity they share is in the similarity in their antagonists characters. With both of these, the antagonist works to not only…

life in New York City is a vastly personal experience that is famous for being unlike a life in any other metropolis. “City Limits” by Colson Whitehead explores the idea that everyone who goes to and lives in New York has their own, unique version of the city. From the moment an individual steps foot in the city, she is “building [her] private New York,” (Whitehead 1). My personal New York —the food stands, pharmacies, and avenues I would come to call home—formed when I moved to Manhattan to…

a topic that we covered a lot over the course of this semester. We applied it in some shape or way to almost every book we have read. In this paper I am going to talk about the similarities and differences of the hero’s journey and other things in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and in Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son. Both of these books tell the story of a journey of one specific character and how that one character evolves over time and adapts to new situations. The two books also use…

My first official memory of New York would be taking place in the Bronx, summer of 2003. I was five years old sitting outside on the steps of our apartment building in the Grand Concourse, which is known as “The Project Village”. You could hear the Spanish music that blasted from the other apartment windows, and see the smaller kids like me getting ready to have relay races and actually enjoy the sun, and my favorite which was seeing the coquito man come up the hill with his truck. A coquito in…

I write, “Whitehead’s use of grotesque imagery creates a gory scene that is more poignant than reading about lynchings in a textbook….While it is gruesome to hear of a man being roasted alive, or a trail of mutilated hanging bodies, in doing so Whitehead amplifies the reader’s understanding of the violent behavior by some individuals of the time period.” After reading I believed that I had represented Cora’s struggles, so that she could receive the recognition for her…

In Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad, protagonist Cora begins the novel as an independent young adult. However, Cora’s self-sufficiency leads her to isolation, which prevents her from growing beyond her own fears. Her escape forces her to develop relationships with others and, in doing so, simultaneously develop an individual identity that is not based on her experiences as a slave. This progress is notably evident in the contrast between her actions with Caesar and Royal. With the former,…

In both “Bartleby the Scrivener” Herman Melville and “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead the main character goes through a traumatic experience or set of experiences. Our main characters, Bartleby and Cora, have exceedingly different lives but they face the challenges associated with abuse. Cora, being a slave, suffers much more pain than Bartleby, but the way that these characters handle their troubles is what defines them. It is often said that when someone’s world is darkest…