Smiles in Black and White: Race and the Smiling Face in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and in Sizwe Bansi is Dead by Fugard, Kani and Ntshona.

While primarily viewed as denoting happiness and positive interpersonal connection, the smile also has an intimate relationship with power and can be used to express forms of violence ranging from the passive-aggressive to overt hostility. Certain smiles may evoke unease, discomfort, pain or fear in others. At the same time, being forced to smile without wishing to do so - as a form of emotional labour and as part of an externally-imposed commodification of the human body - can inflict additional trauma by requiring victims to participate as seemingly willing agents in their own exploitation and deny their felt reality through expressions of supposed enjoyment. This article considers representations of smiles that are entangled with racist structures and perform the work of race or offer varying forms of resistance against racism in two literary works: Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man and the play Sizwe Bansi is Dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]