An Analysis of Neo-Slave Narrative in The Underground Railroad

Abstract

Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad is regarded as a quintessential work of the neo-slave narrative genre. This paper constructs a three-dimensional analytical framework of “inheritance innovation revision” to systematically examine the novel. The study argues that, at the thematic level, the novel inherits and deepens the traditional motifs of slave suffering and the pursuit of freedom, exposing with striking force the systemic violence and logic of bodily objectification inherent in slavery. At the stylistic level, through “temporal spatial dislocation” and intertextual writing, it dismantles linear historiography and reveals the structural continuity of racism. At the paradigmatic level, by means of a “museumizing” (mediating narrative) and the deconstruction of Mabel’s escape myth, it revises the emotional immersion model and closed endings of earlier neo-slave narratives, constructing a critical apparatus for historical cognition. Through its postmodern narrative strategies, The Underground Railroad transcends the traditional neo-slave narrative model, offering a profound literary cognitive lens for understanding the systemic nature and historical continuity of racial oppression in America.