Narrative Scarring in The Underground Railroad

Abstract: This essay challenges readings of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad as historical fiction or historiographic metafiction, asserting that the novel subordinates history's narrative authority beneath that of the body's narrative authority. Central to the argument is the proposed concept of "narrative scarring," which posits the scar as the structural logic of the novel; akin to the scarred Black bodies within, the novel becomes a narrative palimpsest embodying trauma's immanence across histories. Thus, The Underground Railroad transforms corporeal and psychological trauma into a literary and linguistic superposition, offering revised understanding of the intersection between history, narrative, and the scarred Black body.