Reevaluating Juneteenth: What to do with Ralph Ellison’s Second Novel?

Abstract

This thesis seeks to situate Ralph Ellison’s posthumous novel, Juneteenth, in a workable literary framework as a place where the transition between Modernism and Postmodernism occurs, and also explores Ellison’s views on the moral responsibility of the author in a democracy. To this end, I have examined Juneteenth on its own and in concert with Ellison’s other novel, Invisible Man, and works that help to examine the hybrid nature of the novel as both Modern and Postmodern, in addition to the divisive and intense criticism surrounding the work. By seeking to find a place for Juneteenth within a wider literary framework, I endeavor to widen the discourse around this novel that is more obscure than it deserves to be.