The Aesthetics of Laughter expressed in the Factor of Blues: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
AUTHORS
Mia Kim,Jeonju University, Jeonju, Korea
ABSTRACT
The exploration of American history and culture lets people encounter the sacrifice and devastation of African Americans. Therefore, lots of African Americans naturally expressed their anger, adversity and ordeal in different forms of art. It is the scar and it has handed down from ancestors to descendents to descendents. As a result, the early African American writers’ literary works were full of that emotion. However, fortunately they had a healing cultural heritance. It was the humor and laughter naturally melted in their music, blues. Blues lets African Americans embrace their pain into this melody and let them erupt it in a different way. This paper will research the meaning of blues and the aesthetics of laughter included in blues through the examination of African American’s culture and life. In addition to it, this research will be proceeded with the analysis of blues factors permeated through the main hero’s laughter in his life journey of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. For the whole process of it, this paper will focus on examining the historical and cultural meaning of blues for African Americans, and the aesthetic factors of laughter melted in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
KEYWORDS
Invisibility, identity, tragic and comic aspects, blues factors, laughter
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