Harlem Tricksters: Cheating the Cycle of Trauma in the fiction of Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison and Nella Larsen

According to Carl Jung, ‘in picaresque tales, in carnivals and revels, in magic rites of healing, in man’s religious fears and exaltations, [the] phantom of the trickster haunts the mythology of all ages’.1 Indigenous trickster figures across the globe share startling similarities. They can shape-shift, transcend gender boundaries and remove their body parts, and above all, they are the breakers of taboos and social norms. However, it is vital not to overlook the unique cultural context in which particular tricksters are embedded. Transported by slaves to the Americas, African trickster figures played a fundamental role during the plantation regime; Anansi the spider became central to the Caribbean storytelling tradition and Brer Rabbit gained popularity in North America, while Eshu was adopted by the religious practices of slaves, in particular Hoodoo in North America, Santeria in Cuba and Vodun in Haiti. Storytelling on plantations in the Americas was a communal activity, providing a cathartic release from the traumas of plantation life and ensuring the continuation of African oral traditions. The trickster also demonstrated ways in which slaves could thwart the plantation system using some of the few means available to them; their cunning, intelligence and linguistic wit. In twentieth-century North America, the Brer Rabbit trickster, the hero of plantation folktales, metamorphosed once more to become central to the African American literary tradition.