Roots: The Story of an American Family (Critical Overview)

Critical Overview

For the most part, Roots was a critical success, although no amount of critical acclaim could have overshadowed its overwhelming popular reception. Critics of Roots have tended to focus on the historical accuracy of the novel, Haley's use of dialect, and the book's emotional power.

Russell Warren Howe asserted that Roots "is crammed with raw violence and makes valid demands on the tearducts of the dourest reader."

Arnold Rampersad contended that Haley's "recreation of Kunta's middle passage journey in the hold of a slave ship is harrowing, the major place in the book where facts are incontrovertibly alchemized into vivid narrative."

Likewise, critics praised Haley's renderings of heart-wrenching scenes like the one where Kizzy is sold away from her parents, about which Paul Zimmerman wrote, "this soapy passage is heart-breaking."

Even critics who have found themselves moved by Roots have taken issue with the historical accuracy of the book. Some have argued that Roots is a mythic account, not a strictly factual one — more of an "unchallengeable testament of symbolic truth."

Nevertheless, other critics have continued to find fault with Haley's historical accuracy. Howe maintained that Kunta would never have identified himself as "African" while still in Africa, nor would he have seen African slavers as traitors. He wrote, "the people of his village, Juffure, did not see all 'Africans' as brothers. Indeed, they had no concept of Africa."

Other critics have maintained that Haley's portrayal of slave life unrealistic. David Herbert Donald contended that "he simply has not done enough reading about the South, about slavery, about American agriculture."

Some critics of Haley have also seen his portrayals of whites as monolithic. Howard Stein saw in Roots "a reversal of white stereotypes, popular and sociological, [which] obscures much of the interpersonal complexity and internal anguish in those both Black and White."

Almost all reviewers and critics of Haley noted his use of black dialect. Rampersad asserted that "Haley's ability to write dialogue and dialect is competent at best, and stilted and artificial far too often." Zimmerman deemed the dialect "authentic," but argued that it "grows wearing and turns ridiculous when forced to convey historical bulletins."

Several critics found fault with Haley's introduction of American historical events into the action of the book. Rampersad called the inclusion "uninteresting" and Donald wrote, "it is awkward that the only way Haley can devise to introduce chronology is to have house slaves rush down to the quarters announcing the latest big-house gossip."

Most critics have noted that Haley's portrayal of Kunta Kinte is by far his strongest characterization. Rampersad called Haley's "presentation of Kunta's unfolding consciousness of the strange new white world of America" "brilliant." Although some critics praised Haley's rendering of life in Juffure, Howe argued that "only when Juffure has become a distant childhood memory, and Kunta is acculturated into slave America, does the character become arrestingly true."

There have been periodic challenges to Haley's research methods and veracity. One critic, Philip Nobile, has argued that because "the uniqueness of Roots lay in the fact that it claimed to be painstakingly researched, and true," inconsistencies between Haley's account and historical records meant that Haley was basically a fraud.

In a rebuttal to this claim, Clarence Page argued that "the difference between fiction and journalism is that journalism deals with 'facts' while fiction deals with 'truths.' If so, it will always be easier for somebody to chip away at Haley's 'facts' than for anybody to deny his 'truths.'"

On the whole, most critics of Roots have tended to agree with Rampersad, who wrote that the book is "a work of extremely uneven texture but unquestionable final success."