Spirituality and religious beliefs in selected fiction by Ishmael Reed

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to analyse spirituality and religious beliefs in two selected novels by Ishmael Reed: Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down and Mumbo Jumbo. The main argument being presented is that in these two novels Reed presents hoodoo as an open spiritual and religious belief system which is more apt at unifying the fictional societies presented in the texts. These two novels have been chosen as they are the ones in which Reed develops the hoodoo theme most consistently and structurally.

This dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first chapter seeks to introduce African-American literature and locate Reed within the context of this tradition, as well as discuss how the theme is developed by Reed in relation to other writers from the same tradition. Special attention is also given to the political and theological contexts in which Reed was writing.

The second chapter focuses on how Reed makes use of humour in order to defend the hypothesis that hoodoo is a better social unifier than other monotheistic religions. The argument of this section is that Reed uses two distinct types of humour in order to create a contrast between hoodoo and monotheistic religious beliefs.

The penultimate chapter focuses on the manner in which Reed creates his characters within the texts. A distinction is made here between the hoodoo practising characters and the non-hoodoo practising characters, with the focus being on how the hoodoo practising characters act against the social disharmony caused by the non-hoodoo practising characters.

The final chapter of this dissertation focuses on how Reed makes use of different writing strategies within his texts which are reflective of the way in which the hoodoo theme develops in the novels. The argument presented is that hoodoo is the structurally unifying theme within two texts where a non-linear narrative which is difficult to follow is used.