MANICHEAN BLUEPRINT:A POSTCOLONIAL READING OF THE SPATIAL ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL POWER IN THE NICKEL BOYS

Abstract

This research paper will provide a postcolonial spatial analysis of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead by suggesting that the carceral setting of the novel is not a passive setting where racial injustice is practiced but rather a material engine of racial injustice. Based on the theory of the Manichean worldview as developed by Frantz Fanon, according to which the colonial universe is viewed as a world cut in two into opposing spaces of being and non-being, this paper unravels the geography of the Nickel Academy as a literal map of the systemic racial power. Going beyond thematic analyses of trauma or resilience, the analysis shows how racism is built in architecture and performed in space. The article, using a strict qualitative textual analysis, explores how the physical design of the institution, including its segregated dormitories (Cleveland vs. Roosevelt), its administrative fronts, and its punitive White House and its secret burial grounds, is made to become reality in an ideology of complete racial segregation. This is an order of space which is also maintained by a discursive architecture of euphemism and official language which disguises violence. It is found that the racial hierarchy is not only exercised in the institution but is actually constructed into the very structure and symbolic order of the institution, making oppression a naturalized, unavoidable setting. Through the spatial dialectic of Fanon, this reading offers a new way of thinking about the novel by Whitehead, making the reform school a practical monument to the logic of colonialism that has been persisting in the American landscape. Finally, the paper argues that The Nickel Boys uses architectural metaphor and spatial narrative to provide a deep critique of the spatial construction, maintenance, and resistance of racial power. It confirms the importance of literature as a type of social and spatial critique, connecting postcolonial theory and carceral studies, and the critical study of built environments.