THE WHITES' HEGEMONY IN SUSAN STRAIGHT'S NOVEL A MILLION NIGHTINGALES: A POSTCOLONIAL STUDY

Abstract

The hegemonic relations are very common in almost all social situations, especially between unequal groups in power. People sometimes are not aware of these unhealthy relations, their weapons, and their consequences. Many researchers and students of literature, wrote about this concept. However, in this article, the researcher attempts to uncover how the whites employ hegemony in their discourses, when they are talking to or about African Americans in Susan Straight's novel 'A Million Nightingales'. The writer, here, uses the Critical Discourse Analysis as a method of analysis of his selected data and depending on the theoretical framework of the postcolonial theory and Edward Said' theory of 'the Other'. The researcher sheds light on the social situations in which the whites with various social positions exercised hegemony on the protagonist 'Moinette', on the means by which the whites sustain their hegemony, and on the results of such continuous and long hegemony on people. The researcher infers that there are domination relations are practiced upon 'Moinette' by the whites, despite, they had power or wealth or not but what is important is that being white. Their power to behave in a hegemony way with African Americans is that they are white.