Reviews - Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

442 reviews for:

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

This 1992 book is a short but super interesting piece of literary criticism, adapted from a series of lectures given by author Toni Morrison several years before. She argues for viewing classic works by white American writers through a racial lens, and discusses how the black Other is constructed in such literature as something for white characters to be defined against. If these insights sometimes seem obvious to a modern audience, that's in large part due to thinkers like Morrison paving the way -- and her insistence that ignoring the element of race in a text is still a racial reading remains particularly astute. I probably would have gotten even more out of this experience had I been familiar with all of the titles under discussion, but it's a clarifying read regardless.

[Content warning for racism including slurs.]

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khopeisz's review against another edition

5.0

As a reader and writer, and as a black reader and writer, I will forever be meditating on these thoughts by Morrison. Also, Ernest Hemingway…….the way that I’ve never read your fiction and will continue my life in the tradition of never reading your fiction…….

hulahoopes's review against another edition

4.0

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

regenherz's review against another edition

5.0

hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

brittkieff's review against another edition

5.0

A call to turn lit crit away from examining the effects of the victim of racism in literary work, and away from completely ignoring racial hierarchies in classic American lit, to instead focus on how American lit defines whiteness and how white characters are defined in direct opposition to the racial other. She's just a good writer idk what to say.