Systemic Racism in Nineteenth-Century Tales of Black Revenge

Darbouze-Bonyeme, Nella

Systemic Racism in Nineteenth-Century Tales of Black Revenge

dc.contributor.advisor	Wagner, Martin
dc.contributor.author	Darbouze-Bonyeme, Nella
dc.contributor.committeemember	Bourrier, Karen
dc.contributor.committeemember	Nyquist, Mary
dc.date	2023-02
dc.date.accessioned	2022-11-25T20:35:50Z
dc.date.available	2022-11-25T20:35:50Z
dc.date.issued	2022-11-20
dc.description.abstract	Systemic Racism in Nineteenth-century Tales of Black Revenge highlights the shifting conception of racial oppression across France, Britain, and the USA through an investigation of stories of black or mixed-race avengers. In Histoire des deux Indes (1770), Denis Diderot wrote that “all Negroes need is a leader, valiant enough to guide them towards vengeance and massacre”. Far from viewing revenge as a private vendetta, Diderot saw revenge as a way for the oppressed black slaves to repair systemic wrong to which they were victims; to strike against the racial structure of society and establish social equilibrium. He was not alone. Many nineteenth-century writers, from Maria Edgeworth, with “The Grateful Negro” (1804), to Alexandre Dumas, with Georges (1843), imagined attempts by people of color to redress racial injustice. Yet while scholarship has examined the meaning of revenge narratives for ideas regarding black agency, it has neglected the conception of systemic racism of such tales. My thesis contributes to previous studies by filling this research gap. Drawing on narrative theory, I distinguish three different kinds of black revenge in nineteenth-century literature: (1) tales from a weak abolitionist movement, which depict systems of oppression as invincible; (2) tales from a strong abolitionist movement, which identify hidden mechanisms that sustain racial injustice, and (3) tales of a post-abolition era, which deny systemic oppression. I also shed light on cultural variations in revenge narratives, notably French works’ reluctance to support black avengers, British texts’ tendency to locate racial oppression beyond their borders and American tales’ struggle to conceptualize black collective action. This thesis thus adds nuance to previous scholarship on nineteenth-century racial tales of revenge, so far emphasizing what such narratives have in common: an apparent desire to silence the political motives of black agency.	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Darbouze-Bonyeme, N. (2022). Systemic racism in nineteenth-century tales of black revenge (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1880/115542
dc.identifier.uri	https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/40499
dc.language.iso	eng	en_US
dc.language.iso	fre	en_US
dc.publisher.faculty	Arts	en_US
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary	en
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.	en_US
dc.subject	nineteenth century	en_US
dc.subject	systemic racism	en_US
dc.subject	France	en_US
dc.subject	Britain	en_US
dc.subject	USA	en_US
dc.subject	Revenge	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Literature	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Economics--History	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Ethnic and Racial Studies	en_US
dc.title	Systemic Racism in Nineteenth-Century Tales of Black Revenge	en_US
dc.type	doctoral thesis	en_US
thesis.degree.discipline	Languages, Literatures and Cultures	en_US
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary	en_US
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)	en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopy	true	en_US