Evolving Discussions of Slavery in the Neo-Slave Narrative: 'Family' as a Way of Reimaging Slavery through a Modern Perspective Anonymous College

Slave narratives were written with the immediate purpose to bring about the end of slavery by abolitionists who were able to communicate its horrors and injustice through a literary format. The importance of slave narratives in African American studies cannot be understated especially as slave narratives act as a credible source for the travesties committed under slavery. Yet, they also exist as an example of how powerful the written word can be and the many groundbreaking changes that it can bring in the world. Subsequently, neo-slave narratives being written after slave narratives, fall under this groundbreaking legacy, and are contemporary works that assume the form, conventions and first-person voice of the antebellum slave narrative. Neo-slave narratives are texts that like slave narratives exist for many different reasons among which is to recognize and explore the history of slavery and its implications on our world today. However, neo-slave narratives are different in that they possess more artistic freedoms to explore areas of slavery that were perceived as forbidden or unmentionable by societal standards. Thus, in Family Cooper reimagines the concept of family through taboo topics and unique literary conventions that...