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Fantasy in the Underground Railroad
contacts:dorineadalyn@gmail.com
Most trauma therapist understand that the impulse to avoid triggers are often done to
protect the bearers, however, comes at a cost. Most people who have experienced torture might
find it be invalidating to soften things. This is because, such people want those who can
understand their story by not taking all the pieces of their reality. A focus of the dark moments
may distract the full picture of fictional or real because people are not just predefined
experiences. A reading of the Colson Whitehead, “Underground Railroad” clearly informs the
reader that the author did not shy away from bit of fantasy. Instead of figuring the Underground
Railroad as a network of those who are assisting Cora to secretly move, the novel transforms the
Underground Railroad into real train. Here, the use of the fantasy was not meant to soften things
for the reader because the novel doesn’t just represent networks of system that help free slaves.
Instead, it include real life while advancing the truth of the novel and remaining a satisfying
twist. This essay will explore how Colson Whitehead uses fantasy in the novel the Underground
Railroad.
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The Underground Railroad by Whitehead uses the poetic device called speculative satire
to reconfigure the audience’s historical understanding of slavery. In doing so, Whitehead applies
the use of “speculative aesthetic” or fantasy to explore the possibility of reparative justice that
enables the novel to explore peripheralization (Dischinger 82). The application of generic
fantasy is exemplifies; instead of obscuring the manner in which history of slavery of the Blacks
are over looked. Thus it manages to redirect the use of fantasy into criticism where is often
related to ideological and psychic mystification. The novel uses train stop to symbolize a range
of struggles for Blacks, slaved or free throughout the America. Whitehead weaves historical and
fantasy into a narrative. This is a deliberate rejection of the condition that fiction is based on
fictional themes accurately and realistically to represents the past. Thus by rejecting absolute
realism, the novel reminds the reader that there is more formation regarding African Americans
that is impossible to know since slavery was forbidden the Black to read and write. The
application of element of fantasy such as Freedom Trail, empathize the notion that slavery was
stranger than fiction because Africans were forced to endure it. The deliberate use of fantasy to
represent inaccurate history in the novel serve as a reminder that slavery is not a relic of the past
but markedly recent occurrence and it has a horrifying impact in the present. The experiences of
Cora in the South Carolina does not focuses on the 19th
century, rather are eugenics events that
blossoms in the 20th
century. By distorting history in that way, the author challenges the reader’s
assumption that slavery is act of the past, instead, it is something that occur in the modern
institutions, a powerful afterlife in the present.
The “Underground Railroad” is one of the most powerful fantastical element used in the
novel. While it is real that the Underground Railroad existed, in most cases it was not literal
railroad in the manner in which it is depicted in by Whitehand. Rather, it is an avenue to safe
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houses and station agents who work to fee slaves through a number of ways? The slaves who
managed to escape slavery through railroad did so through every available mode of
transportation such wagon, travelling carts, on foot or on horses. Thus Whitehead question what
is real and what is not real by using the metaphor of railroad as a physical or literal phenomena.
In doing so, the author manages to argue that the freedom of the Blacks is beyond imagination or
fantasy of the white supremacist. No one best emphasize this idea in the novel than the
experiences of Ridgeway who is infuriated and confounded by his constant inability to capture
Cora and Mabel. The Underground Railroad is unique because of its realistic blend of fantasy
and history (Li 18). Despite the fact that railroad happed above the ground based on the historical
records, the novel fantasize the Underground Railroad as an actual network of underground
tunnels having a locomotive. The character in the novel cannot explain where the tunnels came
from or their existence without being discovered. In this sense, the railroad are metaphorical
instead of being literal thus making the story of Cora to be more fanatical. However there are
parts of the story that are really painful and depict actual happening in history such as the
runaway slaves that happened during the Civil Wars. The blend of history and fantasy thus forces
the reader to ponder on the shameful occurrence and those that are still occurring in the present
times regarding racial prejudice. What follows from the presentation of realism is a mythical
realism. Some of the parts of the novel deal with magical realism, some are historical fiction and
other parts of the narrative focuses on slavery. Whitehead transforms the metaphorical
Underground Railroad to an actual mode of locomotion from a historical memory of transport
during slavery. The secret tracts connect the cities at the stops, and conductors like Martin
operate the train and the escaped slaves on their journey of freedom. The magical realism is used
in the novel to allow the author to make a critique of the slaver by questioning the accepted
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realities by juxtaposing them with magical elements that are purposely created to appear normal.
Unlike fantasy, magical realism focuses on ordinary people in the society.
Beyond the question of historical fantasy, the author manages to portray the whites as
living in the fanatical imagination. This is shown by the character who are committed to a false,
mythical version of the History of America. This is demonstrated by the repeated references to
the America Declaration of Independence. It explains that United States is founded on the belief
that all people are equal and free. Such delectation is a disapproval of the reality of slavery and
legal status of the Black people in America because it represent Black as less status human
beings. Elijah Lander in his speech references his honesty and hypocrisy of the Americas myths
by arguing that the nation is built on a false belief that white people have authority to torture
Blacks and acquire territories of the Indians. As result African Americans must commit to their
delusion which is their own fanatical freedom. In this regard, myths and fantasy are portrayed to
have both positive and negative results in the novel. Through repeated declaration of
Independence, history and myths is fantasized especially for the African American people whose
very existence is a threat to fantasy of the White supremacy.
Whitehead’s critical realism on speculative realism can be perceived as the inescapability
of the supremacy of the Whiteman. In this understanding, there is nothing naive because the
Underground Railroad is imagined as a subterranean network of trains across antebellum south.
Rather, the conductor leaves the bewildered riders in other states that are uniquely committed to
their systematic dehumanization of the Blacks, thus the creation of the railroad remains a
mystery to the audience. This can best be explained by Saldivar where the readers are to confront
their “known phenomena” rather than knowing “the Thing-in-itself” (574). Based on the fantasy
world created by Whitehead in the novel, the white domination and objection of the blacks are
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inescapable. They are twin pillars of the America history and cannot be diced away. They
constantly remains intact even if the author’s imagination in the novel goes wild. Saldivar
explore the issue of speculative realism as a foundational Postrace fiction. He uses this form of
fantasy to revers the normal occurrence of fantasy by turning it way from the forms of daydream
delusion and denial to a manifold characteristics of history. “American too is delusion, the
grandest one of all is the white race belief that it is their right to take the land from Indians and
enslave brothers” (Whitehead, 117). Thus fantasy in the novel become an avenue through which
the historical truth are exposed rather than an indulged its negation. This aesthetics exemplifies
Underground Railroad fanatic nature as a trouble in the narrative conceit. While most modern
use of fantasy conceits to shed light on traumas, the Underground Railroad does not set clear
boundaries of nature. Readers incarnate travelling in kindred to save those enslaved Black in the
antebellum. However, the author portray Cora as over hopeful that one of the subterranean trains
will finally deliver the freedom she requires.
The invisible and visible fantasy and realism meet in the searing novel. The real is
Underground Railroad that assisted slaves escape and thus become literal aspect of the novel.
The unflinching portrayal of the plantations life alludes to slavery experiences and in this sense,
Whiteheads establishes fanatical direction. In the beginning, Cora plays with great assurance in
the South, she is flanked with brutality but accepts her fate. Thus, a reading of the Underground
Railroad presents completely a different depiction as it uses metaphor to present reality. This
enable the author to get a balance of making the railroad believable physically and at the same
time make it fanatical. In attempt to accurately represent the actual happening of 19th
century
slavery act, Whitehead deliberately blend fanatical and historical elements into a novel. This is
deliberate rejection of historical writing which represent accurately and realities of the past, thus
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the author reminds the reader that there is still much about realities of the African Americans
slavery than what is captured in the historical records. Elements of fantasy like the Freedom Trail
are used in the novel to empathize the notion that slavery was stranger especially from the
African Americans perspective. Also, the Underground Railroad is a major fantastical element in
the novel. It is true that the Underground Railroad was real in the historical record in regard to
slavery, it is used in the novel as a fanatical element that represents avenues to safe houses for
the freed slaved. By metaphorically using the Underground Railroad as a lateral phenomenon,
the author argues that the notion of the African Americans is beyond fantasy or imagination
especially in the context of the white supremacist.
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Works Cited
Dischinger, Matthew. States of Possibility in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad.
JSTOR. Vol. 11. No.1. (2017). P. 82. Retrieved from:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/globalsouth.11.1.05#metadata_info_tab_contents
Li, Stephanie. Genre trouble and History’s Miseries in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground
Railroad. Melus. Vol. 44. No. 2. (2019). P.1-23. Retrieved from” https://academic-oup-
com.eres.qnl.qa/melus/article/44/2/1/5479863
Saldivar, Ramón. Historical Fantasy, Speculative Realism, and Postrace Aesthetics in
Contemporary American Fiction.” American Literary History. vol. 23, no. 3. 201, pp. 574
Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. Doubleday. (2016). P.117.
