A Deferred Meaning of Home in Claude McKay’s Novel Home to Harlem

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.210615.055How to use a DOI?

Keywords

deconstruction, deferred meaning, Harlem, home

Abstract

Taking a title of his first novel Home to Harlem (1928), Claude McKay as the implied author seems to bring the perception of his readers to a standpoint saying that Harlem was a final destination for blacks in the early 20th century, the time setting of the novel. Paradoxically, the novel gives a twisted ending by letting both of the main black characters in the novel, Jake and Ray, leave Harlem because of different reasons. This article aims to show a deferred meaning of “Home to Harlem” in the novel as well as to find the hidden aim in the novel. This research will use Derrida’s theory about deconstruction and differance concept. The result shows that the text seems to deconstruct a myth about Harlem as the mecca of the New Negro. The meaning of home in the novel has deferred into a space inhabited by a familiar in which one can find needs of physical, intellectual, mental, and emotional security. A decision to leave Harlem chosen by both of main characters in the novel is a symbol that Harlem cannot be the best representative of African American’s home enabling to meet all of blacks’ needs of racial equality in the early twentieth century.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Mike Wijaya Saragih
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/06/17
TI  - A Deferred Meaning of Home in Claude McKay’s Novel Home to Harlem
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Conference on blended learning, educational technology and Innovation (ACBLETI 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 282
EP  - 287
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210615.055
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.210615.055
ID  - Saragih2021
ER  -