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n’s quest. In other words, the black women in the novel are willing to pursuefreedom at any cost. Cora’s grandmother and mother represent the early black women’s pursuit of freedom. Although Cora’s grandmother never had a chance toescape from the plantation, she created a piece of land in the middle of the plantationas her own property which opened a gap in the slave owner’s empire of power. Thecrops grown on the land symbolized the slaves’ desire for self-sufficiency and impliedthe persistence of their physical strength. Their desire for freedom also sprouted in theland and extended to their descendants. Cora’s mother Mabel was the first slave toescape successfully from the slaver owners and the hunters. But at the end of novel,Mabel decided to return after leaving the plantation for miles because she could notbear to leave her daughter alone. But she had a few hours of freedom in her life as aresult of her escape, a treasure and strength she could share with her daughter. Corainherited the land from her grandmother and mother, and the small land became thesource for her to break the jurisdiction. At the same time, she also inherited theirpower to pursue freedom and put them into physical action, and her attitude wasgradually changed from passive defense to active struggle and resistance.

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Chapter Two Rewriting of Traditional Characters of SlaveNarrative in The Underground Railroad

2.1 Deconstruction of the Misrepresented Black Women Images

Most slave narratives are male-authored works, which emphasizes black men’swisdom, heroic actions, and power. By contrast, black women are viewed as lowlybeings, and often treated as such. Black women are marginalized and grouped. Theyjust function as the black men’s testimony of the inhuman slavery. Besides, femaleslaves are often presented as negative images in traditional slave narrative. Thetraditional black women are sometimes degraded as silly mammies, licentious Jezebel,and incapable mothers. As a neo-slave narrative writer, Whitehead rewrites the threestereotyped black women images above. The Underground Railroad is an importantwork because it deals effectively with the role of sexual and physical oppression ofblack women under slavery.

Firstly, the protagonist Cora is a brave heroine. In traditional slave narrative, thefascinating story of the Underground Railroad, as a central theme in the USAntislavery Movement, is often told with regard to a long list of male abolitionists,such as the legendary black leader Frederick Douglass. And although it is barelymentioned, many women had an essential role in the Underground Railroad actions.However, neo-slave narrative writers began to use new methodologies and resourcesto explore the past. As a new slave narrative writer, Whitehead sets up a vulnerablebut rebellious black slave girl as the protagonist of the novel, which is very differentfrom the slave protagonist in the male narrative. In male narrative, the black girl waspitied as she was approaching puberty because of the inevitable harassment,degradation and force placed upon her sexually, especially if she happened to bebeautiful. She did not dare to resist. She must obey her master and worked as a goodslave. In contrast to the protagonists in traditional slave narrative, Cora was neither anobedient sla本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。