Abstract
By making use of atypical representations of familiar mythologies, author Neil Gaiman explores how traditional narratives, associated with specific peoples, have as a result of global human movements taken root and transmogrified in their new environments. While his invocation of animistic presences as a means to discover/recover the personal and genealogical histories of his characters is extensively explored in American Gods (2001), Anansi Boys (2005) intensifies this exploration by focusing its narrative on a specific cultural group. This paper examines Gaiman’s use of animism, not only to explore the cultural/spiritual pastiche of postmodern America, but also to reclaim traditional cultures from their histories of colonisation and challenge the human-nature dichotomy.
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Wheeler, AM. (2017). The Porosity of Human/Nonhuman Beings in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Anansi Boys . In: Woodward, W., McHugh, S. (eds) Indigenous Creatures, Native Knowledges, and the Arts. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56874-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56874-4_7
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