Building a city with words. Multi-perspective storybuilding in Colson Whitehead's "The Colossus of New York"


Essay, 2018

6 Pages, Grade: 1,7


Abstract or Introduction

One might consist that there are as many different versions of New York, as there are people who have laid eyes upon its steel pillars. Some focus more on the promising varieties, while others rather pay attention to the desperate, violent side of the city that lurks underneath the shiny surface of “post-card perfect America”. But if one searches close enough, there is always a unifying commonality that links “the subjective perceptions of the countless people who experience it”.

This unifying identity to a variety of collective phenomena, then, is probably what forms the keel and backbone of Colson Whitehead’s “The Colossus of New York”. In his introductory essay “City Limits”, which sets the tone for the entire collection, he writes that the city is full of people, “each haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing”. But even though there are so many different ways to experience the city, that it becomes almost impossible to describe how a single being might observe the city, he sets out to bring as many different approaches to reality together as possible. By combining numerous subjective viewpoints and assessments, he manages to illuminate the city in all its dazzling diversity.

Details

Title
Building a city with words. Multi-perspective storybuilding in Colson Whitehead's "The Colossus of New York"
College
University of Frankfurt (Main)
Grade
1,7
Author
Year
2018
Pages
6
Catalog Number
V424853
ISBN (eBook)
9783668720534
ISBN (Book)
9783668720541
File size
436 KB
Language
English
Keywords
colson whitehead, modern literature, colossus of new york
Quote paper
Ann-Kathrin Latter (Author), 2018, Building a city with words. Multi-perspective storybuilding in Colson Whitehead's "The Colossus of New York", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/424853

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Title: Building a city with words. Multi-perspective storybuilding in Colson Whitehead's "The Colossus of New York"



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