Disentangling the Knots of Diasporic Identity through the Prism of Postpositivist Realism in Caryl Phillips’ Crossing the River
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56294/sctconf2024727Keywords:
Diaspora, Human Migration, Blacks, Enslavement, HistoryAbstract
Crossing the River (1993) holds within itself a whole history of the Black Diaspora. This history churned through the memories of various characters unfolds before the reader the experience of exile, disillusionment, and loneliness and depicts the diasporic ambivalence and hegemony of the Whites. Through a story of three black people during different time periods and on different continents as they struggle with separation from their native Africa, the novelist invites readers to see how individual stories are intertwined in the wider tapestry of collective memory. Phillips is interested in how narratives of slavery inform the contemporary migrant condition. Phillips explores the myriad associations and connecting points within black history on the imaginative terra firma of his fiction. He calls upon the reader to delve deeper into the ‘visible and obvious’ and to see how the present identities acquired their shape and characteristics; how the cauldron of collective memories, narratives, and stories produced enduring tales of affirmation and resilience. The novel acquires new contours when seen in the light of the Postpositivist realist approach. The theoretical approach enriches the thematic understanding of the novel and substantiates the idea that the concept of identity necessitates a valid epistemological inquiry
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