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 the book Roots is not non-fictional, like it is said on the cover of the book (chapter 3). The analysis of dialogues and characteristics of persons in the book will prove it. For the task was to prove the fictionality of the book in comparison to the representation of the characters in the film, these two means of style of fictionality were chosen: dialogue and representation of characters. The author did actually not compare with the film because it was not clearly visible if the directors of the film were black or white, and so the analysis could have led in a wrong 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 in chapter 120: 'In the years of the writing, I have also spoken before many audiences 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 my knowledge and of my effort, every lineage statement within Roots is from either my African or my American families carefully preserved oral history, much of which I have been conventionally to corroborate with documents.(...) Since I wasn't yet around when most of the story occurred, by far most of the dialogue and most of the incidents are of necessity a novelized amalgam of what I know took place together with what my researching led me to plausibly feel took place.'1 Further on, the work will tell about Alex HALEY himself (chapter 1). For this part the Microsoft Encarta of the year 1996 was used. Further, the 'Einführung in die Anglistik' from Sammlung Metzler2, the 'Arbeitsbuch Literaturwissenschaft' from UTB3 and the 'Einführung in die Literaturinterpretation' 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. MÜLLER/ J. SCHMIED: Einführung in die Anglistik. Verlag J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar 1997. 3 EICHER, T./ V. WIEMANN (Hrsg.): Arbeitsbuch: Literaturwissenschaft. UTB Paderborn/ München/ Wien/ Zürich 1997. 4 SCHUTTE, Jürgen: Einführung in die Literaturinterpretation. Verlag J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar, 3. Auflage 1993.