3rd Annual Academic Symposium - Lora Deming

Evaluating the “Africanist presence” in literature not only reconstructs a period in history that Americans like to pretend did not exist, but it also reflects opposing views society held in race relations. In both The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and “The Black Cat,” Edgar Allan Poe employs the “Africanist presence” to construct his argument against miscegenation by symbolizing the necessity of racial purity, whereas Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson relies on the “Africanist presence” to illustrate the absurdity of racial labels and resulting damage, both social and psychological, on the individual and on society as a whole.