La deumanizzazione del corpo nero: mostruosità e contagio in The Life and Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw di Frances Trollope e The Monster di Stephen Crane

Abstract

This paper sets out to investigate the provocative way two nineteenth-century writers, namely Frances Trollope and Stephen Crane, delved into the interlaced issues of American slavery (depicted as a dehumanizing institution) and blackness, perceived by the characters as if it were a contagious disease, threatening the health of the white nation. After exploring the context of both works, the analysis will focus on Trollope’s The Life and Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw (1836) and The Monster (1898), a controversial novella in which Stephen Crane examined the effacing effect of racism in contemporary America.