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چکیده
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This thesis examines the representation of racial identity transformation in Ralph Ellison's unfinished novel Three Days Before the Shooting . . . through the lens of William E. Cross Jr.'s Nigrescence Theory. The study focuses specifically on the first three stages of Cross's model—Pre-Encounter, Encounter, and Immersion-Emersion—to analyze the psychological and ideological development of the protagonist, Bliss (later known as Senator Adam Sunraider). A qualitative interpretive methodology grounded in close thematic analysis is employed to examine how Ellison's narrative represents racial identity formation. The analysis demonstrates that Ellison depicts racial identity not as a fixed or linear developmental process but as unstable, fragmented, and continuously negotiated. Bliss's trajectory moves from assimilationist denial (Pre-Encounter), through psychological rupture triggered by a shooting (Encounter), toward partial and conflicted re-engagement with Black communal identity (Immersion-Emersion), without arriving at stable internalization or closure. The novel's unfinished, fragmented narrative structure formally mirrors this unresolved identity conflict, reflecting the broader instability of racial consciousness within American modernity. The study concludes that while Nigrescence Theory provides a productive interpretive framework for literary analysis, Ellison's narrative simultaneously exposes the limitations of rigid developmental models by presenting racial identity as historically contingent, narratively unstable, and structurally unresolved. This interdisciplinary research contributes to African American literary criticism, psychological approaches to literature, and broader discussions of race, memory, and identity in modern American fiction by demonstrating how Ellison's novel both illuminates and complicates psychological models of racial identity development.
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