A God of Justice?

by Whitted, Qiana J.

• ISBN13: 9780813927978
• ISBN10: 0813927978
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-30
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr

Summary

Focusing on the representations of spiritual crisis in twentieth century African American fiction and autobiography, Qiana J. Whitted asks how some of the most distinguished writers of this tradition wrestle with the inexplicable nature of God and the experience of unmerited natural and moral sufferings such as racial oppression. Although this spiritual and existential dilemma of "the problem of evil" is not unique to African Americans, writers such as Counte Cullen, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Ernest Gaines, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison offer paradigmatic examples of it in black life and culture after World War I. Whitted argues that these spiritual struggles so often articulated through the cry for divine justice are central to an understanding of modern black literary engagements with religion. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Qiana J. Whitted is Assistant Professor of English at the University of South Carolina.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Introduction: "Would He Be to Us a God of Justice?"	p. 1
"In My Flesh Shall I See God": Ritual Violence, "The Black Christ"	p. 31
"Wrastl' On Jacob": Richard Wright and the Trope of the	p. 53
"A Loveless, Barren, Hopeless Western Marriage": Spiritual Infidelity in the Fiction of	p. 77
"There Is No Way Not to Suffer": Evil Ruptures and Improvisations of Joy in "Sonny's Blues" and "The Sky Is Gray"	p. 109
"But God Is Not a Mystery. We Are.": Toni Morrison and the Problem of Paradise	p. 147
Conclusion: "Something as Inexplicable as Water"	p. 183
Notes	p. 189
Bibliography	p. 203
Index	p. 217
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