Ring Shout

Content Warning: This section discusses anti-Black racism and violence, enslavement, and hate crimes such as lynching.

A resistance narrative is a text that questions power structures; creates ways of knowing that are different from the oppressive, dominant culture; and—most importantly—reinforces beliefs that support resilience in communities that are subject to oppression. Ring Shout is a resistance narrative in which resistance serves as a means of achieving healing after suffering trauma.

In particular, Ring Shout is a resistance narrative that re-imagines the racial terror of the late 1910s and early 1920s as a moment when Black Americans were able to overcome the threats that surrounded them. In the novella, overcoming happens on a group level when the resistance fighters around Nana Jean can escape from the fruitless and individual pursuit of vengeance for the hurts they’ve experienced; they instead come together to make sense of their experiences and combine their efforts to achieve some purpose. This dynamic is true on the individual level in the case of Maryse, who only stops using her sword to seek out vengeance that puts her body and soul at risk when Nana Jean calls her to Macon. Through her association with the resistance, Maryse can find forms of healing like being a part of something larger and engaging with a group of friends who serve as a counterbalance to her destructive impulse to use violence to solve every problem.