American Trickster PDF Download

Author: Emily Zobel Marshall
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1783481110
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Examines the cultural significance of the North American trickster figure Brer Rabbit.

Author: William J. Jackson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1630877336
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Tricksters are known by their deeds. Obviously not all the examples in American Tricksters are full-blown mythological tricksters like Coyote, Raven, or the Two Brothers found in Native American stories, or superhuman figures like the larger-than-life Davy Crockett of nineteenth-century tales. Newer expressions of trickiness do share some qualities with the Trickster archetype seen in myths. Rock stars who break taboos and get away with it, heroes who overcome monstrous circumstances, crafty folk who find a way to survive and thrive when the odds are against them, men making spectacles of themselves by feeding their astounding appetites in public--all have some trickster qualities. Each person, every living creature who ever faced an obstacle and needed to get around it, has found the built-in trickster impulse. Impasses turn the trickster gene on, or stimulate the trick-performing imagination--that's life. To explore the ways and means of trickster maneuvers can alert us to pitfalls, help us appreciate tricks that are entertaining, and aid us in fending off ploys which drain our resources and ruin our lives. Knowing more about the Trickster archetype in our psyches helps us be more self-aware.

Author: Winifred Morgan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137344725
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book analyzes and offers fresh insights into the trickster tradition including African American, American Indian, Euro-American, Asian American, and Latino/a stories, Morgan examines the oral roots of each racial/ethnic group to reveal how each group's history, frustrations, and aspirations have molded the tradition in contemporary literature.

Author: Emily Zobel Marshall
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1783481110
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 176

View

Book Description
Examines the cultural significance of the North American trickster figure Brer Rabbit.

Author: Winifred Morgan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137344725
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 256

View

Book Description
This book analyzes and offers fresh insights into the trickster tradition including African American, American Indian, Euro-American, Asian American, and Latino/a stories, Morgan examines the oral roots of each racial/ethnic group to reveal how each group's history, frustrations, and aspirations have molded the tradition in contemporary literature.

Author: Terry L. Norton
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476649391
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
An agent of chaos and deceit, the trickster has been a favorite character spanning thousands of years and multiple peoples. From legends belonging to Native Americans such as the Creek, Natchez, Seminole and Catawba, to tales borrowed from Africa and Europe, this work discusses 73 trickster tales. Beginning with Creek tales, this book continues with a blend of Native American and African American folktales, organized according to the indigenous people who told them. These stories include the American Southeast's most notorious trickster, Rabbit; his gullible victims such as Alligator, Wildcat and Wolf; and other tricksters such as Buzzard, Pig, Possum and more.

Author: Dean Andrew Nicholas
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9781433102264
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
The Trickster Revisited: Deception as a Motif in the Pentateuch explores the use of deception in the Pentateuch and uncovers a new understanding of the trickster's function in the Hebrew Bible. While traditional readings often «whitewash» the biblical characters, exonerating them of any wrongdoing, modern scholars often explain these tales as significant at some earlier point in Israelite tradition. But this study asks the question: what role does the trickster have in the later pentateuchal setting? Considering the work of Victor Turner and the mythic function of the trickster, The Trickster Revisited explores the connections between tricksters, the rite de passage pattern, marginalization, and liminality. Marginalized individuals and communities often find trickster tales significant, therefore trickster stories often follow a similar literary pattern. After tracing this pattern throughout the Pentateuch, specifically the patriarchal narratives and Moses' interaction with Pharaoh in the Exodus, the book discusses the meaning these stories had for the canonizers of the Pentateuch. The author argues that in the Exile and post-exilic period, as the canon was forming, the trickster was the perfect manifestation of Israel's self-perception. The cognitive dissonance of prophetic words of hope and grandeur, in light of a meager socio-economic and political reality, caused the nation to identify itself as the trickster. In this way, Israel could explain its lowly state as a temporary (but still significant) «betwixt and between», on the threshold of a rise in status, i.e. the great imminent kingdom predicted by the prophets.

Author: Jeanne Campbell Reesman
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820322773
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
At once criminal and savior, clown and creator, antagonist and mediator, the character of trickster has made frequent appearances in works by writers the world over. Usually a figure both culturally specific and transcendent, trickster leads the way to the unconscious, the concealed, and the seemingly unattainable. This book offers thirteen interpretations of trickster in American writing, including essays on works by African America, Native America, Pacific Rim, and Latino writers, as well as an examination of trickster politics. This collection conveys the trickster's imprint on the modern world.

Author: John W. Roberts
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812203119
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
To protect their identity and values, Africans enslaved in America transformed various familiar character types to create folk heroes who offered models of behavior both recognizable to them as African people and adaptable to their situation in America. Roberts specifically examines the Afro-American trickster and the trickster tale tradition, the conjurer as folk hero, the biblical heroic tradition, and the badman as outlaw hero.

Author: Cynthia Peters
Publisher: Gallaudet University Press
ISBN: 9781563680946
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
"The moment when a society must contend with a powerful language other than its own is a decisive point in its evolution. This moment is occurring now in American society". Peters explains precisely how ASL literature achieved this moment, tracing its past and predicting its future in this trailblazing study. Peters connects ASL literature to the literary canon with the archetypal notion of carnival as "the counterculture of the dominated". Throughout history carnivals have been opportunities for the "low", disenfranchised elements of society to displace their "high" counterparts. Citing the Deaf community's long tradition of "literary nights" and festivals like the Deaf Way, Peters recognizes similar forces at work in the propagation of ASL literature. The agents of this movement, Deaf artists and ASL performers -- "Tricksters", as Peters calls them -- jump between the two cultures and languages. Through this process they create a synthesis of English literary content reinterpreted in sign language, which also raises the profile of ASL as a distinct art form in itself. Peters applies her analysis to the craft's landmark works, including Douglas Bullard's novel Islay and Ben Bahan's video-recorded narrative Bird of a Different Feather. Deaf American Literature, the only work of its kind, is its own seminal moment in the emerging discipline of ASL literary criticism.