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"A Strange and New Knowledge": James Joyce's "Epiphany Process" and Richard Wright's "Innocent Guilt" in The Man Who Lived Underground.

  • Published In: Mississippi Quarterly, 2024, v. 76, n. 3. P. 275 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Berardino, Christopher Seiji 3 of 3

Abstract

Eighty years after its composition, Richard Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground was published in its entirety for the first time in April 2021. Indeed, one of the major surprises afforded by this recent publication is Wright's curious decision to imbue his protagonist, Daniels, with a revelatory "strange and new knowledge" that "he was all people and they were he." While much of the existent criticism on the short story version has asserted the narrative is one of existential solipsism, I contend the unexpunged novel is rooted in a collective possibility, or what Wright terms in "Memories of My Grandmother" as "one meaningful whole." By considering James Joyce's "epiphany process," Wright strategically leverages Joycean epiphany into a narrative technique uniquely his own, what Wright himself terms as "innocent guilt." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:Mississippi Quarterly. 2024/07, Vol. 76, Issue 3, p275
  • Document Type:Literary Criticism
  • Subject Area:Religion and Philosophy
  • Publication Date:2024
  • ISSN:0026-637X
  • DOI:10.1353/mss.2024.a936600
  • Accession Number:179811681
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