Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies ›› 2013, Vol. 13 ›› Issue (07): 49-53.

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An Analysis of Signifying Revision in Erasure from the Perspective of Gates' Signifying Theory

LUO Hong, WANG Mingyue   

  • Online:2013-07-15 Published:2020-07-25

Abstract: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. gives a groundbreaking in the unique interpretative system and the great vernacular tradition of African-American literary criticism—the Signifying Theory, which provides a methodology and perspective in African-American literary criticism within the tradition of Black Vernacular. From the critical perspective of Signifying Theory, this paper analyzes the text of Erasure, representative work of African-American writer Percival Everett. Not only the story's whole narrative structure comprises of signifying revision of its sub-text Fuck, but the rhetorical strategies are embodied with the black difference. As a result, the novel is infiltrated with sharp satire profoundly. Also it reflects the nature of “blackness”, an important concept in Gates' Signifying Theory.

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