Rereading Cain, Abel, and Martin Luther King Jr in Charles Johnson’s Dreamer
Charles Johnson sets his 1998 novel Dreamer during the Chicago Freedom Movement that Martin Luther King Jr led in 1966. Alongside his fictionalised King character, Johnson imagines a doppelganger, Chaym Smith. Johnson develops the story of Chaym and King by evoking the biblical story of Cain and Abe...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
[2020]
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| In: |
Literature and theology
Year: 2020, Volume: 34, Issue: 3, Pages: 263-280 |
| IxTheo Classification: | CD Christianity and Culture HA Bible NCA Ethics |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Charles Johnson sets his 1998 novel Dreamer during the Chicago Freedom Movement that Martin Luther King Jr led in 1966. Alongside his fictionalised King character, Johnson imagines a doppelganger, Chaym Smith. Johnson develops the story of Chaym and King by evoking the biblical story of Cain and Abel. The hatred, violence, and injustice that are inherent in the Bible story of the two brothers contrast sharply with the love, nonviolence, and justice that are paramount to the historical King’s theology, and the surprising juxtaposition forces readers to reappraise what they think they already know about both the biblical Cain and the historical King. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4623 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Literature and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/litthe/fraa012 |