Otherwise Flânerie: Movement in Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad

Abstract

This thesis shows a reading of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad through redefining the traditional flâneur, the practice of psychogeography, and otherwise possibility. Shifting the act of fleeing to flânerie and reading Cora's character (a fugitive slave who escapes the Randall plantation in Georgia) as a flâneur allows her movement to be seen as otherwise flânerie. This gives her escape attempt the possibility of an escape from slavery, through reclaiming spaces that are inherently white and through the utilization of different alternative forms of flânerie offered by Whitehead over the chapters.