Imagined Realities: An Exploration of Societal Hierarchies and Racial Violence in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad

Abstract

This research explores the idea of social hierarchies and the consequent violence, as shown in Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. The novel summons the theme of inequality, Xenophobia, individual struggle and trauma. The aim is to analyze the various factors that create and strengthen racial hierarchies and the psychological and physical effects of slavery. The protagonist Cora is part of a broken family and becomes a victim of a pre-written fate by coming into a world where whiteness is the norm. Shackled and broken, she yearns for the world that exists outside the set boundaries. However, the absurdity of her existence becomes clear when she realizes that the outside world is no different from the world she had just escaped. Hence, this research aims to explore the past that is buried behind the fancy slogans of color blindness and post-racism. In this context, critical race theory including Kimberle Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality and Paulo Freire’s theory of oppression will be used as tools to analyze the oppressor/oppressed consciousness and accentuate the economic, physical, and psychological exploitation that the blacks have faced at the hands of their imperial masters. The future implication of this paper suggests that these racial hierarchies, far from being fully uprooted, have been made invisible and are manifested in various other ways.