Culture, History, and Literature - Essay Example

In this novel, Morrison uses his characters to reveal the unsolved contradictions of American racial history as well as the persistent ideologies of slavery that shaped the identity and sense of self among many Americans. The racial formations and the dominant ideology of slavery in the American culture that threatens the society’s founding promise of equal opportunity is well portrayed through the character of Frank. The direction and purpose of Frank’s journey in the novel focuses on the cultural hegemony that is fuelled by the racial subordination and inequality in the society.

“A race is a concept that signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests.” (Omi and Winant 118). Since race is seen as an element of social structure and a dimension of human representation, racial formation implies the process of transformation of racism in a period. This racial formation is said to be evolved through a social and cultural hegemony that is organized and represented by the then society. In this sense, it can be analyzed that the society presented by Morrison in her novel Home includes the nature of racism through social prejudices, differences, inequalities, and violent oppression.

As evident in the novel, various social conflicts and prejudices within the society implies the existence or formation of race. The American understanding of the ideology of race has changed over the time, affecting the perceptions and experiences of African-Americans. Particularly, after the era of Reconstruction that insisted civic equality and freedom, the American society embraced a new ideological formation of racial subordination, which presented challenges to the racial status quo that existed then.

The racial inequalities resulting from the social ideologies are presented in Morrison’s novel, using characterizations,