In some of these instances, as Lawrence W. It is generally believed that enslaved persons did not share with prying researchers the tales containing human characters because the protagonists were primarily tricksters, and the tales showcased actions that allowed those tricksters to get the best of their so-called masters. However, as more and more researchers became interested in African American culture after slavery and in the early twentieth century, they discovered a strand of tales that focused on human actors. Tales they shared during slavery were initially believed to focus almost exclusively on animals. After long hours of work in cotton and tobacco fields, therefore, blacks would occasionally gather in the evenings for storytelling.

Denied access to literacy by law and custom, anything they wanted to retain in the way of cultural creation had to be passed down by word of mouth, or, in terms of crafts, by demonstration and imitation. They were brought for the bodies, their physical labor. People of African descent who found themselves enslaved in the New World, and specifically on United States soil, were not brought to the West to create poems, plays, short stories, essays, and novels. To get a sense of this influence and these interconnections, it is necessary to explore the African American oral tradition.ĭuring slavery, trickster tales with human characters reflected the actual behavior of the people telling and hearing them. In fact, some scholars have argued that the African American oral tradition is the basis for all written literary production by African Americans. As black people who were enslaved gained literacy and began to write about their experiences, they incorporated figures from oral tradition into their written creations. Though trickster tales in African American culture are frequently a source of humor, they also contain serious commentary on the inequities of existence in a country where the promises of democracy were denied to a large portion of the citizenry, a pattern that becomes even clearer in the literary adaptations of trickster figures. While frequently humorous, trickster tales often convey serious social critiques. Brer Fox jumps into the other water bucket, descends into the well, and, in the process, enables Brer Rabbit to rise to freedom. For example, in one African American folktale, Brer Rabbit, the quintessential trickster figure in African American folklore, succeeds in getting Brer Fox to rescue him from a well by asserting that the moon reflected in the water at the bottom of the well is really a block of cheese. Mostly, they are pictured in contest or quest situations, and they must use their wits to get out of trouble or bring about a particular result. In executing their actions, they give no thought to right or wrong indeed, they are amoral.

In other words, tricksters succeed by outsmarting or outthinking their opponents. Tricksters achieve their objectives through indirection and mask-wearing, through playing upon the gullibility of their opponents. By definition, tricksters are animals or characters who, while ostensibly disadvantaged and weak in a contest of wills, power, and/or resources, succeed in getting the best of their larger, more powerful adversaries. Tricksters dominate the folk tradition that peoples of African descent developed in the United States, especially those tales Trickster figures, present in every oral tradition, are weak, often amoral, characters who outsmart stronger opponents.that were influenced by African folk tradition, landscape, and wildlife. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of English, EmeritaĪlmost every oral tradition in the world has trickster figures, and African American culture is no exception. The Trickster in African American Literature

Jazz and the African American Literature Traditionįreedom’s Story is made possible by a grant from the Wachovia Foundation.The Image of Africa in the Literature of the Harlem Renaissance.The New Negro and the Black Image: From Booker T.

Trickster characters