Email this article 
Magic Realism, Neurodiversity, and Carnivalesque in James McBride’s Song Yet Sung
Abstract
This paper considers James McBride’s novel Song Yet Sung through multiple lenses – Bakhtin’s Carnivalesque, magic realism and performativity as it relates to race and gender identities. It is considered how the character of the “Dreamer” can be read clinically as suffering the sequelae of a traumatic brain injury. Her symptoms, which include future hallucinations or prophecies, can be read as neurological symptoms of her multiple head injuries documented in the novel. Connected to this reading, the influence of magic realism is considered, particularly as it relates to the natural imagery and symbolism in the novel. The importance of birds, in particular, is considered. Carnivalesque as conceptualized by Bakhtin is also considered in the context of “magical” thinking and reading, and its connections to social subversion; this is considered in relation to the era of slavery, its legacy, and associated issues of gender and race.
Keywords: Carnivalesque, Magic Realism, Prophecy, Gender Performance, Racial Performativity, Identity Performance
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and his world. Trans. Helene Iswolsky. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Bernstein, R. (2011). Racial innocence: Performing American childhood from slavery to civil rights. New York, NY: NYU Press.
Brooks, D. (2006). Bodies in dissent: Spectacular performances of race and freedom, 1850-1910. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Butler, J. (1997). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. London, UK: Routledge.
Dalmage, H. M. (Ed.). (2004). The politics of multiracialism: Challenging racial thinking. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Daniel, G. R. (2010). Race and multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: converging paths? University Park, PA: Penn State Press.
Derrida, J. (1974). White mythology: Metaphor in the text of philosophy. New Literary History 6: 11-74
Gross, A. J. (2001). Beyond black and white: cultural approaches to race and slavery. Columbia Law Review 101(3), 640-690. doi: 10.2307/1123740.
Hernandez, T. K. (1997). Interests and rights of the interracial family in a multiracial racial classification. The Brandeis Journal of Family Law, 36(1), 29.
Hill, M.E. (2002). Skin color and the perception of attractiveness among African Americans: Does gender make a difference? Social Psychology Quarterly, 65(1), 77-91.
Hobson, F. (1999). But now I see: The White southern racial conversion narrative. Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press.
Hollinger, D. A. (2003). Amalgamation and hypodescent: The question of ethnoracial mixture in the history of the United States. The American Historical Review, 108(5), 1363-1390.
Holquist, M. (1990). Dialogism: Bakhtin and his world. New York, NY: Routledge.
Huber, M. (2009). (Re-)Covering queer: Restarting public space and sexual politics. In José Belbel. M and Reitsamer, R. (Eds.), dig me out: Discourses of popular music, gender and ethnicity (pp.1-18). Art Centre Arteleku, Spain/Austria.
Hunter, M.L. (2002). “If you're light you're alright”: light skin color as social capital for women of color. Gender and Society, 16(2), April, 175-193.
Jefferson, A. (2001) Bodymatters: Self and other in Bakhtin, Sartre and Barthes. In: Hirschkop, Ken and Shepherd, D. (Eds.) (2001): Bakhtin and cultural theory,( 2nd ed., pp. 201-118). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Jorge, Ricardo E. (2005). Neuropsychiatric consequences of traumatic brain injury: a review of recent findings. Current Opinion in Psychiatry 18(3), 289-299.
Jung, H. Y. (1998). Bakhtin’s dialogical body politics. In M. M. Bell & M. Gardiner (Eds.), Bakhtin and the human sciences (pp. 95-111). London, UK: Sage..
Lindahl, C. (1996) Bakhtin's carnival laughter and the Cajun country Mardi Gras. Folklore, 107(2): 57-70.
Massagli. TL, Fann. JR, Burington. BE, Jaffe. KM, Katon. WJ, and Thompson. RS. (2004). Psychiatric illness after mild traumatic brain injury in children. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitations, 85, 1428-1434.
McBride, J. (2009). Song yet sung. London, UK: Penguin.
McBride, J. (2013). The good lord bird. London, UK: Penguin.
Schwalm, T. (2006). “Relax and enjoy the show”: Circensian animal apaces in Australian and Latin American magical realist fiction." The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 41(3): 83-102.
Schwalm, T. (2009). Animal writing: magical realism and the posthuman other. (Doctoral thesis, University of Canterbury, Auckland, New Zealand). Retrieved from
http:// http://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/4470/thesis_fulltext.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Vaishnavi. S, Rao. V, and Fann. J. R. (2009). Neuropsychiatric problems after traumatic brain injury: unraveling the silent epidemic. Psychosomatics 50(3): 198-205.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
2013-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.
International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies
You may require to add the 'aiac.org.au' domain to your e-mail 'safe list’ If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox'. Otherwise, you may check your 'Spam mail' or 'junk mail' folders.