Roots by Alex Haley

Seminar paper from the year 2000 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2 (B), Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (Anglistics/ American Studies), course: Voyage Through Death - Representing theTransatlantic Slave Trade, language: English, abstract: In this work about the book Roots by Alex HALEY the author will show that thebook Roots is not non-fictional, like it is said on the cover of the book (chapter3). The analysis of dialogues and characteristics of persons in the book willprove it. For the task was to prove the fictionality of the book in comparison tothe representation of the characters in the film, these two means of style offictionality were chosen: dialogue and representation of characters. The authordid actually not compare with the film because it was not clearly visible if thedirectors of the film were black or white, and so the analysis could have led in awrong way. About the importance of the race will be said more in the analysis. One important point for proving the fictionality comes from Alex HALEY himself inchapter 120: "e;In the years of the writing, I have also spoken before manyaudiences of how Roots came to be, naturally now and then someone asks,'How much of Roots is fact and how much is fiction?' To the best of myknowledge and of my effort, every lineage statement within Roots is from eithermy African or my American families carefully preserved oral history, much ofwhich I have been conventionally to corroborate with documents.(...) Since Iwasn't yet around when most of the story occurred, by far most of the dialogueand most of the incidents are of necessity a novelized amalgam of what I knowtook place together with what my researching led me to plausibly feel tookplace."e;1Further on, the work will tell about Alex HALEY himself (chapter 1). For this partthe Microsoft Encarta of the year 1996 was used. Further, the "e;Einfuhrung in die Anglistik"e; from Sammlung Metzler2, the"e;Arbeitsbuch Literaturwissenschaft"e; from UTB3 and the "e;Einfuhrung in dieLiteraturinterpretation"e; 4 build the scientific basis for this work. 1 HALEY, A.: Roots. Dell Publishing, New York 1974. p.726-727. 2 KORTE, B./ K. P. MULLER/ J. SCHMIED: Einfuhrung in die Anglistik. Verlag J. B. Metzler,Stuttgart/Weimar 1997. 3 EICHER, T./ V. WIEMANN (Hrsg.): Arbeitsbuch: Literaturwissenschaft. UTB Paderborn/ Munchen/Wien/ Zurich 1997. 4 SCHUTTE, Jurgen: Einfuhrung in die Literaturinterpretation. Verlag J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar, 3. Auflage 1993.