Narrativization of African American Past ; Memory, Identity and Cultural Trauma in Mumbo Jumbo and Juneteenth

Abstract

The present study examines cultural trauma of the African American people by analyzing Ishmael Reed‘s novel Mumbo Jumbo and Ralph Ellison‘s novel Juneteenth. This qualitative study ponders over why these novels portray the disturbing images from the past of the African American people, ranging from slavery to Harlem jazz culture. Both novels, as per this dissertation, are the narrativizations of cultural trauma of the African American people. They display collective injury inflicted on the African American people by slavery, racism and systematic erasure that demand narrative and ritual healing through Hickman's sermonic mourning or LaBas's mystic detective work. These novels illustrate how cultural trauma is not merely inherited but actively resisted through storytelling, exposing the wounds while offering paths to reclamation. Drawing upon the theoretical insights of Ron Eyerman and Aili Aarelaid-Tart on cultural trauma, memory and identity, this research attempts to present these novels as significant creative voices weaving individual memories and identities which stand for collective communal memories representing black cultural and ethnic awareness. Key words: Cultural trauma, postmemory, narrativization, memory, diasporic identity