Publication Date
2014-07-18
Availability
Embargoed
Embargo Period
2016-07-17
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PHD)
Department
English (Arts and Sciences)
Date of Defense
2014-05-14
First Committee Member
Timothy P. Watson
Second Committee Member
Frank A. Palmeri
Third Committee Member
John R. Funchion
Fourth Committee Member
Evelyn O'Callaghan
Abstract
This study of nineteenth-century American, British, and Caribbean texts examines the historical and geographical shifts in literary depictions of West Indian Creoles, who were the offspring of colonizers and/or slaves in the Americas, and focuses on the relationship between literature and Creole identity formation. The presence of Creoles in literature demonstrates, on the one hand, the development of a Creole consciousness in texts by West Indian authors written from a Creole point of view. On the other hand, literary Creoles in British and post-Independence American novels attest to the importance of the West Indies within the Atlantic world, although Creoles are often depicted as outsiders. Canonical novels, in which Creole characters appear, also uncover some of the contradictions inherent in stereotypical depictions of West Indian Creoles. These contradictions are the focus of my study. In my reading of American and British novels—whose Creole characters often exemplify literary typecasts associated to the West Indies, rather than real Creoles—I read against the grain to identify ambiguities that open a space, often non-verbal, where the Creole can be re-configured. Although the figure of the West Indian Creole varies according to race, gender, and specific historical, economic and political realities linked to the location where a novel is set and/or produced, “Shape-Shifting Creole Identities” makes connections between diverse literary texts, endeavoring to trace the emergence of a Creole consciousness and analyzing shape-shifting Creole figures who can cross borders and re-define themselves alongside, within, and/or in opposition to stereotypical representations of Creoles.
Keywords
West Indian Creole characters; Nineteenth-Century British, American, and Caribbean novels; Transatlantic Literature and Identity Formation; Slavery and Emancipation Debate; Race and Gender; American and Haitian Revolutions
Recommended Citation
Amadori, Claudia, "Shape-Shifting Creole Identities: Representations of Creole Figures in Nineteenth-Century Anglophone Transatlantic Literature" (2014). Open Access Dissertations. 1243.
https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/oa_dissertations/1243