Editing Anansi (section)

=== Resistance ===
Instead, Anansi was often celebrated as a symbol of slave resistance and survival, because Anansi is able to turn the tables on his powerful oppressors by using his cunning and trickery, a model of behaviour used by slaves to gain the upper hand within the confines of the [[Plantation complexes in the Southern United States|plantation power structure]]. Anansi is also believed to have played a multifunctional role in the slaves' lives; as well as inspiring strategies of resistance, the tales enabled enslaved Africans to establish a sense of continuity with their African past and offered them the means to transform and assert their identity within the boundaries of captivity. As historian [[Lawrence W. Levine]] argues in ''Black Culture and Consciousness'', enslaved Africans in the New World devoted "the structure and message of their tales to the compulsions and needs of their present situation" (1977, 90).<ref name="Zobel Marshall 2012">Zobel Marshall, Emily (2012) ''Anansi's Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance''. University of the West Indies Press: Kingston, Jamaica. {{ISBN|978-9766402617}}</ref>

[[File:Anansi (Mayaguez Children's Library).jpg|thumb|Illustration used by Puerto Rican storyteller [[Tere Marichal]].|238x238px]]