The Images of Islam and American in "The Autobiography of Malcolm X".

The image of Islam in the United States reached its rock bottom after the 9/11 attack and current events, especially in politics, have shown that these images have not been improved: There is still the same fear and misunderstanding of what Islam is and what it constitutes of. In this thesis, I am trying to uncover the images of Islam in the Autobiography of Malcolm X and discuss them in relation to the images of Islam in the American newspaper published in the sixties. The questions that I am trying to ask are how the narrative of Malcolm X presents these images and whether or not it affects the presentation of Islam in the American newspapers. I will try to explore the possibilities of reading The Autobiography as a hybrid text in which the main character is trapped in the "third space" that conforms to neither assimilation nor complete separation to his previous ideology. This thesis will hopefully open up new directions to the study of The Autobiography of Malcolm X as a literary text and also Islam as a topic in literary studies.