Emplotments of Epistolarity in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me
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Crafted as a letter to his fifteen-year-old son Samori, Between the World and Me (2015) won Ta-Nehishi Coates several accolades and tremendous commercial success. Curiously, however, among black intellectuals and leaders, the reception of his work is sharply divided. In interviews, Coates has revealed that the memoir in its earlier stages did not take the form of a letter, and interestingly, that his son had read versions when it was not designed as a letter. This essay is an attempt to appreciate Coates’ memoir as creative, literary intervention, specifically his eventual choice of the epistolary form. I examine how Coates utilizes and modifies the epistolary mode to probe his concerns about black voice, black subjectivity, and the black body. I also consider how Coates emplots features of epistolarity, as he explores conditions of violence and disruption and the possibilities of restoration and connection, delivering them with introspective reflection and appellative instruction, and with intimacy, immediacy, and urgency that often characterizes the epistolary mode. Using the epistolary form as a critical resource, Coates thus also reinvigorates the possibilities of epistolarity as a literary convention that can carry political implications.
Abstract
Crafted as a letter to his fifteen-year-old son Samori, Between the World and Me (2015) won Ta-Nehishi Coates several accolades and tremendous commercial success. Curiously, however, among black intellectuals and leaders, the reception of his work is sharply divided. In interviews, Coates has revealed that the memoir in its earlier stages did not take the form of a letter, and interestingly, that his son had read versions when it was not designed as a letter. This essay is an attempt to appreciate Coates’ memoir as creative, literary intervention, specifically his eventual choice of the epistolary form. I examine how Coates utilizes and modifies the epistolary mode to probe his concerns about black voice, black subjectivity, and the black body. I also consider how Coates emplots features of epistolarity, as he explores conditions of violence and disruption and the possibilities of restoration and connection, delivering them with introspective reflection and appellative instruction, and with intimacy, immediacy, and urgency that often characterizes the epistolary mode. Using the epistolary form as a critical resource, Coates thus also reinvigorates the possibilities of epistolarity as a literary convention that can carry political implications.
참고문헌 (21)
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