Invisibility and Racial (Un)belonging: (Re)Visioning the “Tragic Mulatto” in Danzy Senna’s Symptomatic
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This essay reads Danzy Senna’s Symptomatic (2004) in order to consider how Senna revises (or reinforces) the historically problematic figure of the tragic mulatto within the context of late twentieth century America which purports itself to be “post-racial.” The post- 1967 mixed race movement often took up a “celebratory discourse of hybridity,” thereby positioning the mulatto as a figure who has the capacity to “disrupt former paradigms of power and subordination with regards to race” (Young 287, Ibrahim 155). In Symptomatic, Senna seems to caution against the movement’s tendency to simply celebrate mixed-racial identity as an “emblem of successful integration” (Ibrahim 155). I suggest that Senna’s narrative re-views the historical figure of the mulatto within the context of the “‘new’ multiracial national imaginary” and makes sincere attempts to critique the post-racial discourse that is eager to deem mixed race persons as “undeniably ‘tragic no more’” (Young, 290, Streeter 10). However, what I find problematic is that Symptomatic, in resurrecting the problematic figure of the tragic mulatto (albeit inadvertently), serves as a disturbing reminder to its readers that the racial binary (and the corollary marginalization and demonization of racially marked bodies) has made its return from the past, and its destructive discourse haunts the American landscape even in the “Mulatto Millennium.”
Abstract
This essay reads Danzy Senna’s Symptomatic (2004) in order to consider how Senna revises (or reinforces) the historically problematic figure of the tragic mulatto within the context of late twentieth century America which purports itself to be “post-racial.” The post- 1967 mixed race movement often took up a “celebratory discourse of hybridity,” thereby positioning the mulatto as a figure who has the capacity to “disrupt former paradigms of power and subordination with regards to race” (Young 287, Ibrahim 155). In Symptomatic, Senna seems to caution against the movement’s tendency to simply celebrate mixed-racial identity as an “emblem of successful integration” (Ibrahim 155). I suggest that Senna’s narrative re-views the historical figure of the mulatto within the context of the “‘new’ multiracial national imaginary” and makes sincere attempts to critique the post-racial discourse that is eager to deem mixed race persons as “undeniably ‘tragic no more’” (Young, 290, Streeter 10). However, what I find problematic is that Symptomatic, in resurrecting the problematic figure of the tragic mulatto (albeit inadvertently), serves as a disturbing reminder to its readers that the racial binary (and the corollary marginalization and demonization of racially marked bodies) has made its return from the past, and its destructive discourse haunts the American landscape even in the “Mulatto Millennium.”
참고문헌 (25)
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