prikaz prve stranice dokumenta Shades of Passing : the Dialectic of Identity in Philip Roth's The Human Stain and William Faulkner's Light In August
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Scientific paper - Original scientific paper
Shades of Passing : the Dialectic of Identity in Philip Roth's The Human Stain and William Faulkner's Light In August
University of Bucharest Review, 1 (2011), 1; 141-150. urn:nbn:hr:142:096865
Novak, Sonja

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Novak, S. (2011). Shades of Passing : the Dialectic of Identity in Philip Roth's The Human Stain and William Faulkner's Light In August. University of Bucharest Review, 1. (1), 141-150. Retrieved from https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:142:096865

Novak, Sonja. "Shades of Passing : the Dialectic of Identity in Philip Roth's The Human Stain and William Faulkner's Light In August." University of Bucharest Review, vol. 1, no. 1, 2011, pp. 141-150. https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:142:096865

Novak, Sonja. "Shades of Passing : the Dialectic of Identity in Philip Roth's The Human Stain and William Faulkner's Light In August." University of Bucharest Review 1, no. 1 (2011): 141-150. https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:142:096865

Novak, S. (2011) 'Shades of Passing : the Dialectic of Identity in Philip Roth's The Human Stain and William Faulkner's Light In August', University of Bucharest Review, 1(1), pp. 141-150. Available at: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:142:096865 (Accessed 28 December 2024)

Novak S. Shades of Passing : the Dialectic of Identity in Philip Roth's The Human Stain and William Faulkner's Light In August. University of Bucharest Review [Internet]. 2011 [cited 2024 December 28];1(1):141-150. Available at: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:142:096865

S. Novak, "Shades of Passing : the Dialectic of Identity in Philip Roth's The Human Stain and William Faulkner's Light In August", University of Bucharest Review, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 141-150, 2011. [Online]. Available at: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:142:096865. [Accessed: 28 December 2024]

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Metadata
Title (english)Shades of Passing : the Dialectic of Identity in Philip Roth's The Human Stain and William Faulkner's Light In August
AuthorSonja Novak
Author's institutionJosip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
(Department of German Language and Literature)
Scientific / art field,
discipline and subdiscipline		HUMANISTIC SCIENCES
Philology
Theory and History of Literature
Abstract (english)
The paper takes a closer look at the phenomenon of racial passing as form of cultural transition: as transformation of identity, i.e. as changing of the Self in William Faulkner’s Light in August and Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. The aim of the paper is to try to show the way the two main characters, Joe Christmas in Light in August and Coleman Silk in The Human Stain, pass as white, the reasons for it, and, in the end, the consequences of their actions. The interesting point is that even though the writers of the novels are decades apart and despite the many differences in the lives of the two tragic black heroes, both Joe Christmas and Coleman Silk end up the same way – dead after passing for white and after being involved in sexual relationships with white women. Both characters seem to undergo an identity crisis as a result of their racial ambiguity, which they obviously cannot overcome. In Light in August Joe Christmas is an African-American male often perceived by society as white. Even though some 70 years have passed since Faulkner’s novel, it still appears that whiteness is the most important element of an ideal and desired identity, as shown in Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, where Coleman Silk, again an African-American, passes for white in the 1990s. Though both novels show the characters during various periods of their lives, and in various life situations as well, we will see the different reasons and similar consequences of their ‘passing’ as forms of cultural transition.
Keywords (english)
Languageenglish
Publication typeScientific paper - Original scientific paper
Publication statusPublished
Peer reviewPeer review - international
Publication versionPublished version
Journal titleUniversity of Bucharest Review
Numberingvol. 1, no. 1, pp. 141-150
p-ISSN2069-8658
URN:NBNurn:nbn:hr:142:096865
Publication2011
Document URLhttp://ubr.rev.unibuc.ro/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/SonjaNovak.pdf
Type of resourceText
Access conditionsOpen access
Terms of useLicence Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) icon
Created on2017-09-19 11:56:44