American and Algerian Historical and Literary Continuities: Toni Morrison’s A Mercy (2008) and Assia Djebar’s L’Amour, la Fantasia (1985)

Abstract

This present research work undertakes a study of the American-Algerian historical and literary continuities in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy (2008) and Assia Djebar’s L’Amour, la Fantasia (1985) in the light of New Historicism. It looks into the historical contexts and literary techniques which have influenced the production of the two texts. While Morrison’s A Mercy is concerned with 17PthP century colonialism and slavery institution in America, Djebar’s L’Amour, la Fantasia deals with French colonialism and the post-independence era in Algeria. The present work considers the literary techniques the two authors employ in the texts, including anecdotes, polyphony, and palimpsests to, allegedly, underline subjective historical realities and accounts. In the light of Stephen Greenblatt’s new historicist approach, this research studies the interconnection of the historical and literary discourses in the texts. Shaped by the contextual codes and values of their time periods, the two literary texts, with the use of relevant literary techniques, construct subversive historical representations. Morrison and Djebar rewrite and revise the past histories of their nations to register the marginalized voices and experiences overstepped in the White colonial essentialist discourses