英语论文网

In this novel, through the transformation of the flow of the power field, Blacks are transformed from the gazed into the gaze subjects who resist the White’s gaze, and they do so in order to achieve resistance to the racial gaze, and furthermore, to racial discrimination. In River’s narrative, he recalls the history of cruelty and humiliation suffered by the Black community from the Black’s eyes. The grandparents of River and Stag randomly change the number of kids and never register kids’ births. Because White officials treat the Black population like slaves and livestock, “Said them people came around sniffing out that information to control them, to cage them like livestock” (Ward 21). Secondly, Stag and River are arrested and jailed after the fight with a White soldier (actually, the White Navy starts first) in a bar, and are hypocritically, and viciously, threatened when being taken away, “You boys is going to learn what it means to work, they said. To do right by the law of God and man, they said. You boys is going to Parchaman” (Ward 22). Thirdly, Black prisoners worked day and night in prison, working like animals and being vulnerable to beatings. 

Conclusion

The topic of race is an important part of American literature, especially in Southern American literature. Through its unique narrative techniques, Sing, Unburied, Sing describes the long-standing racial discrimination and injustice suffered by the Black people in Southern America. Under the oppressive power of racial gaze, Blacks directly or indirectly feel uncomfortable and begin to unconsciously discipline themselves and objectify themselves. The surveillance of White guards in Parchman makes Black prisoners lose their subject identities, and they gradually degenerate into soulless slaves. The power oppression of the gaze imposed by the White men represented by Big Joseph in the court forces the families of the Black victims to give up continuing their complaints. Big Joseph’s racial gaze on his Black daughter-in-law Leonie causes her to internalize the view of White superiority and thus exhibit inferiority and cowardice due to her racial identity. What’s more, Big Joseph’s gaze contains patriarchal oppression, making Leonie a member of a voiceless group. Sing, Unburied, Sing is filled with the power fields formed by the White gaze, in which the Black community suffers from different degrees of racial discrimination and power oppression. 

Where there is oppression of power, there is resistance. River takes action to protect Richie from abuse and brutal execution. Richie searches for memories of his past in the form of a ghost to expose the evils and brutality of racism and slavery. Leonie’s consciousness awakens to the hypocrisy and arrogance of Big Joseph and other White men through anti-gaze, eliminating the notion that Whites are superior to Blacks. In the power field formed by the Black people, Blacks expose the false and sinful side of White civilization in their own way. At the same time, they turn from the objects being gazed and disciplined to subjects to gaze, grabbing the power of discourse in the hands of Black people. 

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