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1
Whitehouse, R. "Toni Morrison, 'Beloved', race and tragedy." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/35367.
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This thesis investigates Toni Morrison's engagement with tragedy in her novel Beloved. In opposition to late twentieth-century interpretations of Beloved, which see this novel as reordering or revisiting history in order to establish in its characters a sense of self-worth, this thesis understands Beloved as the narrative which calls a halt to the search for a worthy sense of self in a prescribed history. It argues that the form of this novel is designed and arranged in order to present in dramatic time a conception of a consciousness recognisable as already and always existing in African American individuals: that is, before, during and after slavery. This thesis contends that an engagement with tragedy is crucial in the achievement of this end. In an engagement with Morrison's Nobel Lecture (1993), Chapter One argues that the significations of cultural authority are the result of a process in which negotiations of difference take place (Bhabha 2005). In a study of Morrison's engagement with Du Bois's (1897) theory of double consciousness, Chapter Two researches the complex nature of true fulfilment for the marginalized. Du Bois's difficulty in establishing a simple claim to equality is contrasted with Morrison's rejection of the discourses of difference, exclusion and marginalization (Morrison 1993). Chapter Three develops this line of enquiry to include Morrison's adaption of ancient, tragic drama to the demands of African American writing. Morrison's innovatory use of the separate and external configuration of human sensibilities in the form of Beloved is carefully considered in this chapter. Chapter Four engages with theories concerning the imposition of difference and the material conditions of appropriation, and the signifying system it spawns (Guillaumin 1995). It discusses Morrison's aesthetic engagement with the master/slave relationship.
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Jeskova, Joanna. "The interiority and communical integration of trauma in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Waltham, Mass. : Brandeis University, 2009. http://dcoll.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/23212.
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Light, Susan A. "The political practice of home : the Bluest eye, Beloved, and feminist standpoint theory." Thesis, McGill University, 1991. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=60584.
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The larger issue of the relationship between theory, fiction and experience provides the backdrop for a study of constructions of home in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Beloved. Feminist standpoint theory contends that knowledge is socially and historically constructed. Using the home as a category of analysis, I show how Morrison's constructions of home are located within specific socio-economic, racial, and political contexts which mold the novels' characters. Both feminist standpoint theory and the novels develop a notion of "positionality"--one's location within a larger social and historical network. Differences in focus do exist, however, which stem from their respective developmental and experiential contexts--one being primarily theoretical and scholarly, and the other being the complex literary and fictional mediation of a political experience. Unlike the theoretical articulation of concepts of the standpoint, fiction offers a complex perspective that may, in turn, be used to inform discussions of political and epistemological concepts.
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Leung, Chuen-lik Rachel. "Identity, part and whole : Toni Morrison's Beloved and the Bluest Eye /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1999. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B21161392.
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Angle, Erica. "Unspeakable thoughts unspoken: Black feminism in Toni Morrison's Beloved." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1996. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1118.
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Stenlöv, Camilla. "Beloved as a Good Object : A Kleinian Reading of Toni Morrison's Beloved." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Sektionen för humaniora (HUM), 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-17673.
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The text of Beloved will be analyzed with a Kleinian and Freudian approach in order to show how the characters see each other as good or bad objects. This essay begins with an explanation of terms and a short presentation of psychoanalysis and object relations theory. Thereafter, each main character and their relation to Beloved will be examined and discussed as well as their relation to each other.
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Tjerngren, Moa. "Trunk and branches : aspects of tree imagery in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Thesis, University of Gävle, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-5184.
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The intention with this essay is to examine the symbolic meaning of trees in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Trees are repeatedly mentioned throughout the novel and in this essay the trees are claimed to carry various meanings. A main usage of tree imagery is argued to be in connection to the life and death struggles of the main characters. The relation between tree imagery and slavery, and the effects of this relation, is also analysed.
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Zauditu-Selassie, Kokahvah. "Ancestral presence and epic fulfillment in Toni Morrison 's Beloved and Sula." DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, 1994. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/dissertations/2086.
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The focal point of this study is the examination of ancestral remembrance and the effects of that presence on the epic fulfillmeht of the female heroic characters in two of Toni Morrison’s novels Beloved and Sula. As a comparative study, this dissertation concerns itself with identifying the common cultural assumptions, values and traditions attributed to the African world and the African Americans illustrated in two of Morrison’s novels. To this end, the ontological principles that unify African world culture and the accompanying cosmological categories delineate the discussion of motifs, images, and archetypes employed by Morrison to invoke the ancestral presence. Moreover, this study explores the use of ritual defined by deliberate rhetoric that frames apocalyptic ideas and advances epic achievement.
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Sosan, Bisola. "The Fruits of Our Labor: Reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved as an Oneiric Space." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1535374202976194.
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Näckdal, Anton. "Den berättande texten : En narratologisk studie av Toni Morrisons Beloved." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för kultur och lärande, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-37499.
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This essay is a close-reading study of Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. The purpose of this essay is to investigate and describe Gérard Genette's narratological theories and their function in the novel when looking at how the story is told. The questions that are being answered are how flashbacks actually affect the chronological order of events and who the narrator is that’s telling the story. The methods that are being used in the report are a close-reading of Beloved and making a selection of previous research. The selected research will show an overview of some examples of areas and theories that has been used in other essays. In the summary it appears from the result of the analysis that flashbacks functions as explanations of the characters' thoughts or actions in the present and that the narrator most of the time is the character that is in a particular situation.
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Hatami, Azade. "Memory; The Past and the Present in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Thesis, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Institutionen för humaniora, 2001. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-1604.
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In this essay I discuss the notion of memory and its effect on the three main characters of the book "Beloved" by Toni Morrison and additionally how these characters through their individual relationships with a ghost (in the shape of a young woman) are assisted to move towards a healthier life where they can live in the present. The memories of these characters, Sethe, Denver and Paul D, all differ, but still not one of them has the ability to live in the present. For Paul D and Sethe the haunting memories are due to their days as slaves, and additionally for Sethe, the fact that she murdered one of her children. Denver however, is merely the victim of her mother?s memories, and is more or less imprisoned in a monotonous life. The young (ghost) woman, who relieves these characters from their pasts, is though to be the reincarnation of Sethe?s murdered child Beloved. With her arrival, Beloved forces the characters to move away from their stagnated lives through dealing with their memories of the past and simultaneously finding new knowledge about themselves.
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SILVA, LUCIANA DE MESQUITA. "TRANSLATED LITERATURE IN FOCUS: TONI MORRISON AND BELOVED IN THE BRAZILIAN CULTURAL CONTEXT." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2015. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=25591@1.
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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIROCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
Esta tese aborda a literatura da escritora afro-americana Toni Morrison traduzida no Brasil. Nesse sentido, são consideradas as seguintes traduções do romance Beloved (1987), as quais receberam o título de Amada: a de Evelyn Kay Massaro, publicada em 1989 pela editora Best Seller e em 1993 pelo Círculo do Livro, e a de José Rubens Siqueira, lançada em 2007 e, posteriormente, em 2011, pela Companhia das Letras. Utilizando como arcabouço teórico os Estudos Descritivos da Tradução e os Estudos Culturais, complementados pela visão de Lawrence Venuti sobre retraduções, a presente pesquisa visa a determinar e compreender o lugar sistêmico ocupado por Morrison e pelas traduções de Beloved no contexto cultural brasileiro em comparação à posição da autora e de seu romance no sistema de origem, os Estados Unidos. Para tanto, são trazidas à tona, entre outros fatores, reflexões sobre aspectos de recepção, focalizando os discursos de críticos, professores, outros autores e tradutores, o papel das editoras envolvidas e as ações de patronagem nos respectivos contextos. Além disso, é proposta uma análise dos paratextos e dos recursos textuais referentes às edições de Amada, levando-se em consideração as relações entre literatura, linguagem e questões étnico-raciais.
This Ph.D. dissertation addresses the African-American female author Toni Morrison and her translated literature in Brazil. It focuses on the Brazilian translations of her novel Beloved (1987), published under the title Amada. The first translation was done by Evelyn Kay Massaro and launched by the publishing houses Best Seller and Circulo do Livro, in 1989 and 1993 respectively. The second one, by José Rubens Siqueira, was published by Companhia das Letras in 2007 and, subsequently, in 2011. This study will draw upon both Descriptive Translation Studies and the Cultural Studies, complemented by Lawrence Venuti s view on retranslations. Accordingly, this research aims to determine and understand the systemic function occupied by Morrison and the translations of Beloved in the Brazilian cultural context in comparison with the function of the writer and her novel in the source system, the United States. Therefore, reception aspects, focusing on critics, professors, other authors and translators discourses, as well as the role of the publishing houses and patronage, among other factors, in the respective contexts will be brought to light. Moreover, an analysis of the paratexts and the textual resources relative to Amada s editions will be proposed, considering the relationships among literature, language and ethnic-racial issues.
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Nyberg, Rebecca. "Trauma in Toni Morrison's Beloved : Literary Methods and Psychological Processes." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-171602.
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In this essay, the novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison is observed using a working psychoanalytical approach. Story is observed as an important factor in engaging the reader on a personal level with the experience of trauma. By surveying Morrison’s use of imagery and language, this essay will examine how Morrison employs literary methods that imitate the psychological processes regarding how trauma is communicated to the waking state from the unconscious. The resulting testimony of the novel that arises as the result of these processes is also observed. This essay concludes that Morrison’s use of these literary methods functions to obligate the reader to involve themselves in the process of trauma and its resolution.
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Hudson, Julie Ellen. "Family and national narratives in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Beloved and Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred years of solitude and the autumn of the patriarch /." Digital version accessible at:, 1999. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Lawrence, Joy-Elizabeth Fledderjohann. ""Flesh that needs to be loved" a Christian dialogue with Toni Morrison's Beloved and Paradise /." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN) Access this title online, 2005. http://www.tren.com.
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Molnar, Lauren B. "Pigeonholing without Hybridizing: The False Reduction of Toni Morrison's Beloved." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1303442088.
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Lourenço, Lucilia Teodora Villela de Leitgeb. "Traduzindo o intraduzível : estudo de duas traduções em língua portuguesa de Beloved, de Toni Morrison." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/114417.
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Este estudo analisa duas traduções em língua portuguesa da Beloved, de autoria de Toni Morrison, em Português do Brasil, uma de Evelyn Kay Massaro (1994), outra de José Rubens Siqueira (2007). Enfatiza as diferenças e/ou semelhanças entre ambas, a partir de um levantamento preliminar das características do dialeto Black English Vernacular, empregado pela autora, e as respectivas traduções desse dialeto. A comparação do original com as duas traduções processou-se com base em postulados teórico-críticos da Literatura Comparada e dos Estudos de Tradução. Em um primeiro momento, examinam-se seleções específicas do uso das formas do Black English Vernacular em detalhes, a fim de verificar a eficiência neste aspecto em ambas as traduções em Português e mostrar os recursos usados pelos tradutores e os resultados obtidos. Após, emite-se nosso ponto de vista sobre a análise mencionada anteriormente, tentando formular uma hipótese geral sobre os fenômenos observados com reflexões sobre os problemas envolvidos na tradução de dialetos.This paper analyses two Portuguese translations of Beloved by Toni Morrison into Brazilian Portuguese, made by Evelyn Kay Massaro (1994) and other by José Rubem Siqueira (2007). It emphasizes the differences and/or similarities between them, based on a preliminary investigation whose main focus was the use of Black English Vernacular used by the author and their respective translations. The comparison of the original work with its translations was based on theoretical and critical postulates of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies. At first, specific excerpts of the use of Black English Vernacular forms in the text were selected and examined in detail, in order to establish the efficiency of this aspect in both Portuguese translations and to show the resources used by the translators and the results achieved. In second place, this work presents our point of view about the afore mentioned analysis, trying to formulate a general hypothesis for the observed phenomena. It raises questions about the literary dialects and the problems involved in their translation.
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Lindström, Anna-Lotta. "Sethe - A Gothic Heroine, Yet Different : A Character Study in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Thesis, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Institutionen för humaniora, 2001. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-1683.
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The purpose with this essay is to show how the protagonist in Toni Morrison's novel Beloved can be regarded as a traditional gothic heroine. Yet, she is given different roles and actions than a conventional gothic heroine. It is also argued in this essay that Morrison's heroine is given different qualities in order to reveal important messages. First, a short description of the plot is made in order to show the gothic elements in the novel. In the following, Sethe is dealt with in relation to four traditional gothic elements. These four all appear in the novel. These are: The heroine, the villain, the setting with the haunted house and the supernatural force. Then, Sethe as a different gothic heroine is analysed. Finally, Morrison's messages are brought up.
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Watson, Khalilah Tyri. "Literature as Prophecy: Toni Morrison as Prophetic Writer." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2009. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_diss/50.
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From fourteenth century medieval literature to contemporary American and African American literature, researchers have singled out and analyzed writing from every genre that is prophetic in nature, predicting or warning about events, both revolutionary and dire, to come. One twentieth-century American whose work embodies the essence of warning and foretelling through history-laden literature is Toni Morrison. This modern-day literary prophet reinterprets eras gone by through what she calls “re-memory” in order to guide her readers, and her society, to a greater understanding of the consequences of slavery and racism in America and to prompt both races to escape the pernicious effects of this heritage. Several critics have recognized and written about Morrison’s unique style of prophetic prose. These critics, however, have either taken a general cursory analysis of her complete body of works or they are only focused on one of her texts as a site of evidence. Despite the many critical essays and journal articles that have been written about Morrison as literary prophet, no critic has extensively investigated Morrison’s major works by way of textual analysis under this subject, to discuss Morrison prophetic prose, her motivation for engaging in a form of prophetic writing, and the context of this writing in a wider general, as well as an African-American, tradition. This dissertation takes on a more comprehensive, cross-sectional analysis of her works that has been previously employed, concentrating on five of Morrison’s major novels: The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz and Paradise, in an order to assess how Morrison develops and infuses warnings and admonitions of biblical proportions. This investigation seeks to reveal Morrison’s motivation to prophecy to Americans, black and white, the context in which she engages with her historical and contemporary subjects, and the nature of the admonitions to present and future action she offers to what she sees as a contemporary generation of socially and historically oblivious African Americans, using literary prophecy as the tool by which to accomplish her objectives. This dissertation also demonstrates—by way of textual analysis and literary theory—the evolution through five novels of Morrison’s development as a literary prophet.
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Anderson, Melanie R. "The beloved paradise : spectrality in the novels of Toni Morrison from Song of Solomon through Love /." Full text available from ProQuest UM Digital Dissertations, 2009. http://0-proquest.umi.com.umiss.lib.olemiss.edu/pqdweb?index=0&did=1800249031&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=2&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1268164733&clientId=22256.
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Walker, Stephanie. "Seeking Freedom through Self-Love in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Beloved." VCU Scholars Compass, 2012. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/417.
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Toni Morrison chose to revisit the neo-slave narrative genre twenty-five years after the publication of Beloved with A Mercy in 2008. With these two texts, Morrison offers her readers one story that shows the descent into slavery and one that shows progression towards freedom. The purpose of this thesis is to place Morrison’s two neo-slave narratives, Beloved and A Mercy, next to one another in order to better understand the journey to freedom through self-love. This work examines the concept of self-love and the necessary components—maternal nurturance, ancestral connection, and communal interaction—that must come together to help Morrison’s characters learn to love and see themselves as their “own best thing.” The repercussions that self-love’s absence has for both individual characters and their larger communities is also discussed and illustrated by the struggles of Florens in A Mercy and Sethe in Beloved.
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Wising, Johanna. "Motherhood and the Heritage of Slavery in Toni Morrison's Novels Sula and Beloved." Thesis, Högskolan i Skövde, Institutionen för kommunikation och information, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:his:diva-1408.
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This study focuses on how the heritage of slavery has affected the mothering of two mothers in Toni Morrison's novels Sula and Beloved and how this is portrayed in the novels. It has made a comparison between the mothers and many similarities are found in the lives of these women although they live in different time periods. The essay also elucidates aspects of power and powerlessness as well as the consequences of motherlove.
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Albuquerque, Soraya do Lago. "O patchwork literário de Paulina Chiziane e Toni Morrison : um estudo comparativo entre Niketche : uma história de poligamia e Beloved." Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, 2014. http://ri.ufmt.br/handle/1/379.
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As literaturas pós-coloniais são caracterizadas por conceder voz aos marginalizados, aos considerados subalternos e minorias, para que esses, através das múltiplas vozes, expressas pela escrita literária possam se fazer ouvir e assim buscar a tão sonhada autonomia e significação enquanto sujeito histórico. É nesse contexto que estão inseridas as duas escritoras que são foco deste estudo que traçará por um viés comparativo um estudo entre obras de duas escritoras de países africanos: Paulina Chiziane, moçambicana e Toni Morrison, estadunidense e afrodescendente. Ambas expressam por meio da literatura os costumes de seu povo, desencadeando por meio das memórias um fluxo narrativo pelos rastros deixados pela oratura. A inserção da mulher no mundo literário foi uma das inovações das literaturas pós-coloniais dos países africanos e afrodescendentes, pois até então a mulher não expressava suas necessidades e muito menos indignações, notadamente pela construção social, política e histórica da sociedade patriarcal e sexista. Com a subjugação colonial muito menos ainda poderia ser ouvida. Ao contrário, as emoções foram silenciadas em seus recônditos, aguardando o instante para verter em emponderamento a voz na literatura e, em ação, as atividades políticas feministas. Acreditando nesse empoderamento dado à literatura pretendemos mostrar como as duas escritoras apropriam as suas personagens com ele e traça o diálogo com propostas de mudança e de subversão ao cenário no qual se encontram.
Postcolonial literatures are characterized by granting voice to the marginalized , who are considered subaltern and the minorities for those, through the multiple voices which are expressed by literary writing can be heard and so it can be able to find so awaited autonomy and significance as a historical human being . It is in this context that the two writers are inserted in which they are the focus of this study which intend to do a comparative study between the works of the two writers of African countries : Paulina Chiziane , moçambiquean and Toni Morrison , American and African descent . Both express through the literature the customs of their people , triggering memories through a narrative flow through the traces left by the orature . The women1s inclusion in the literary world was one of the innovations of postcolonial literatures of African countries and African descent ones because until there the woman neither express their needs nor their outrage , especially by the social building , political and historical of the patriarchal and sexist society. With the colonial subjugation it couldn’t be be heard at all. Instead of this, the emotions were muted in their secluded , waiting for the moment to change it into empowerment the voice in literature and, in action, the feminist political activities . Trusting in that empowerment which was given to the literature we intend to show how the two writers appropriated their characters with it and we also goal to get the dialogue with the changing proposals and the subversion of the setting in which they find themselves.
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Hashim, Khuteibe. "Thick Love : A Psychoanalytical Study of Mother-Daughter Relationships in Toni Morrison’s Beloved." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för utbildningsvetenskap, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-35880.
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This study employs psychoanalytical theories to explore how the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious workings of the mind, combined with a search for identity, are presented and dealt with in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved (1987). It is done through a close reading and in-depth textual analysis of thematic concerns raised in the work. Previous research has primarily relied on some specific aspects of psychoanalytic theory and applied it to Beloved. The theoretical framework provides a rationale for this paper to research two events in particular that highlight the mother-daughter relationships between Sethe and her Ma’am and between Sethe and her daughter Beloved. These relationships are consequently analyzed by employing psychoanalytical concepts offered by Freud, Lacan and Kristeva. By utilizing psychoanalytical criticism, the characters’ conscious and unconscious motives and feelings are revealed and explained, as well as the meanings and the undercurrents that lie underneath the text’s consciousness. The results suggest that Sethe murdered her daughter Beloved to keep her from becoming a slave and enduring the dreadful and traumatic consequences of slavery, which was similar to what Sethe went through when she was abandoned by her Ma'am. Sethe’s childhood psychological principles and trauma shaped her identity as a mother as she witnessed her mother abandoning her at a young age by being tortured and killed. The events around Sethe’s mother’s death and the fact that Sethe never identifies her mother’s dead body, scar Sethe for life and instill in Sethe a sense of “lack” and an abnormal feeling of maternal love where she is ready to kill her children to save them from the horror of slavery.
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Söderlund, Veronica. "'Master of My Faith, Captain of My Soul' : Identity and Community in Toni Morrison's Beloved and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för humaniora, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-23588.
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This essay is a close reading of the novels Beloved by Toni Morrison and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou with the purpose of analyzing the impact and role of the African American community in two characters’ formation of self. The aim is to contrast and compare the two chosen characters’ experiences with their respective African American communities and discuss common ground, similarities and differences. A postcolonial approach is applied to the analysis by using concepts and theory from Fanon’s arguments on the psychological effects on the oppressed, Cohen’s description of diaspora communities and Bhabha’s notion of hybridization and culture.
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Turner, Tracy Peterson. "Themes of Exodus and Revolution in Ellison's Invisible Man, Morrison's Beloved, and Doctorow's Ragtime." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2000. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2689/.
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In my dissertation I examine the steps in and performance of revolution through the writings of three Postmodern authors, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and E. L. Doctorow, in light of the model of the biblical Exodus journey and the revolution which precipitated that movement. I suggest that the revolution which began with the Israelites' bondage in Egypt has provided the foundation for American literature. I show that Invisible Man, Beloved, and Ragtime not only employ the motif of the Exodus journey; they also perpetuate the silent revolution begun by the Israelites while held captive in Egypt. This dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter One provides the introduction to the project. Chapter Two provides the model for this study by defining the characteristics of the Exodus journey, Moses as the leader of the Israelites, and the pattern of revolution established by Michael Walzer in Exodus and Revolution. In Chapters Three, Four, and Five, I apply the model established in Chapter Two to the individual texts. In Chapter Six, I draw three conclusions which arise from my study. My first conclusion is that the master story of the Exodus journey and the Israelites' liberation from Egypt informs all Western literaturewhether the literature reinforces the centrality of the master story to our lives or whether the literature refutes the significance of the master story. Second, the stages of revolution present in the biblical Exodus are also present in twentieth-century American literature. My third conclusion is that authors whose works deal with an exploration of the past in order to effect healing are authors who are revolutionary because their goal is to encourage revolution by motivating readers to refuse to accept the status quo and to, instead, join the revolution which demands change. They do this by asking questions which are characteristic of that which is postmodernnot so much looking for answers as demonstrating that questioning what is, is appropriate and necessary.
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Yigit, Eva. "The Healing Power of the Ghost In Toni Morrison’s Beloved : An Analysis Through the Poststructuralist Lens." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för humaniora, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-32748.
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This paper utilizes poststructuralist theory to investigate the polysemic nature of the eponymous character Beloved in Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved. The ghostly, anachronistic presence of Beloved renders the text open to multiple interpretations and this essay sets out to explore the ways in which meaning is created and communicated. From a poststructuralist perspective, considering that the meaning is in a state of flux, a text weaves its system of meaning around an assumed center in order to provide so-called stability. Peripheral meanings are repressed by the center to secure the meaning system. However, the periphery, which has a constructive function in the organization of the text, also has the deconstructive potential. Hence, the deconstructive dynamics are already inherent in the text. In Beloved, Toni Morrison addresses, among other things, the act of speaking the unspeakable and the process of constructing a new subjectivity out of the ghost of the past. Her text deconstructs the dominant narratives that have marginalized the black motherhood experience, explores the horrors of slavery through horror elements, and eventually exposes the inadequacy of language to depict such horrors. While the textual periphery is enabled to speak louder than the center, the textual subconscious flows freely. The reader is forced to participate actively in meaning-making in order to make sense of the fragmented narrative imbued with deliberate ambiguity. Beloved, as the abject other, defies the phallogocentric symbolic order. A counter-discourse emerges from the maternal, semiotic chora and empowers the otherized heroine Sethe to construct her subjectivity. Delving into the interrelationship between traumatic memory and the act of creating one’s own narrative, the text finds reparative elements in ancestral connection and thereby blends the psychological with the historical and the micro-level with the macro-level of meaning. This paper employs deconstructive key concepts from Jacques Derrida, psychoanalytic key concepts from Julia Kristeva, and seeks to unravel the dynamics in Morrison’s text that enable Beloved to be read polysemically.
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Pinto, Marcela de Araujo [UNESP]. "Rememoração e renembrança: a revisão de perspectivas históricas em Beloved (1987), de Toni Morrison, e Desmundo (1996), de Ana Miranda." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/99138.
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pinto_ma_me_sjrp.pdf: 746600 bytes, checksum: 0e3b007b8cfb91086d80f31f409204a7 (MD5)Os conceitos de rememoração e renembrança são apresentados e definidos nos romances Beloved (1987), da autora norte-americana Toni Morrison, e Desmundo (1996), da autora brasileira Ana Miranda, respectivamente, como processos pertencentes ao fenômeno mnemônico, incorporados ao espaço ficcional para revisar perspectivas históricas nacionais oficiais. Ambos os romances foram elaborados a partir de fatos ocorridos em momentos históricos cruciais da grande narrativa de formação nacional dos Estados Unidos e do Brasil. Beloved resgata o crime cometido pela escrava foragida Margaret Garner, poucos anos antes da Guerra Civil (1861-1865), quando matou a própria filha na tentativa de evitar que suas crianças voltassem para a fazenda onde seriam escravizadas. Desmundo retoma a vivência de uma das órfãs enviadas pelo rei de Portugal à colônia Brasil, no século XVI, para servirem como esposas, a pedido dos padres que esperavam extinguir os hábitos dos colonos de se relacionarem com as índias. A confluência entre memória, história e literatura acontece nesses romances por meio da rememoração e da renembrança que se configuram, ao mesmo tempo, como processos mnemônicos realizados pelas personagens e como estruturas narrativas. A rememoração é definida como a imagem que permanece (individualmente e no mundo) quando algo deixa de existir; a renembrança é originada a partir de experiências singulares e possui relações com um mundo fantasioso. Ambas compartilham características ligadas ao enigma da representação que retoma eventos do passado, tais como a construção paradoxal de ausências e distâncias. Porém, a rememoração possibilita a memória coletiva, enquanto a renembrança ocasiona a memória individual. As estratégias narrativas de cada romance acompanham a caracterização de cada um desses processos, distinguindo-se na constituição da memória...
The concepts of rememory and renembrança are presented and defined in Toni Morrison‟s Beloved (1987) and Ana Miranda‟s Desmundo (1996), respectively, as mnemonic processes incorporated into the fictional space in order to revise official national historical perspectives. The American and the Brazilian novels were both based on facts that took place in crucial historical moments of the master narrative concerning the national formation of each country. Beloved revisits the crime committed by Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave, during the pre-Civil War years, when she killed her own daughter in an attempt to save her children from returning to slavery. Desmundo recollects the experiences of one of the Portuguese orphan girls sent to sixteenth-century colonial Brazil to serve as wives, by orders of the king and by the request of the priests who wanted to put an end to the sexual relations among Portuguese colonialists and natives. Rememory and Renembrança set the interrelations between memory, history and literature because they are the mnemonic processes engendered by the characters and, at the same time, they form the structure of the novels. Rememory is defined as the image that lasts (individually and in the world) when something no longer exists; renembrança originates from singular experiences and establishes relations with a fantasy world. The two processes share features related to the enigma of representation that recaptures past events, such as paradoxical constructions of absences and distances. However, rememory triggers collective memory whereas renembrança belongs to individual memory. The narrative strategies of each novel follow the characteristics of each process, distinguishing themselves in the creation of characters‟ memory and experiences. These differences, though, converge to a common objective of preventing the erasure of the past not only through... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)
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Pinto, Marcela de Araujo. "Rememoração e renembrança : a revisão de perspectivas históricas em Beloved (1987), de Toni Morrison, e Desmundo (1996), de Ana Miranda /." São José do Rio Preto : [s.n.], 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/99138.
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Orientador: Giséle Manganelli FernandesBanca: Manuel Fernando Medina
Banca: Norma Wimmer
Resumo: Os conceitos de rememoração e renembrança são apresentados e definidos nos romances Beloved (1987), da autora norte-americana Toni Morrison, e Desmundo (1996), da autora brasileira Ana Miranda, respectivamente, como processos pertencentes ao fenômeno mnemônico, incorporados ao espaço ficcional para revisar perspectivas históricas nacionais oficiais. Ambos os romances foram elaborados a partir de fatos ocorridos em momentos históricos cruciais da grande narrativa de formação nacional dos Estados Unidos e do Brasil. Beloved resgata o crime cometido pela escrava foragida Margaret Garner, poucos anos antes da Guerra Civil (1861-1865), quando matou a própria filha na tentativa de evitar que suas crianças voltassem para a fazenda onde seriam escravizadas. Desmundo retoma a vivência de uma das órfãs enviadas pelo rei de Portugal à colônia Brasil, no século XVI, para servirem como esposas, a pedido dos padres que esperavam extinguir os hábitos dos colonos de se relacionarem com as índias. A confluência entre memória, história e literatura acontece nesses romances por meio da rememoração e da renembrança que se configuram, ao mesmo tempo, como processos mnemônicos realizados pelas personagens e como estruturas narrativas. A rememoração é definida como a imagem que permanece (individualmente e no mundo) quando algo deixa de existir; a renembrança é originada a partir de experiências singulares e possui relações com um mundo fantasioso. Ambas compartilham características ligadas ao enigma da representação que retoma eventos do passado, tais como a construção paradoxal de ausências e distâncias. Porém, a rememoração possibilita a memória coletiva, enquanto a renembrança ocasiona a memória individual. As estratégias narrativas de cada romance acompanham a caracterização de cada um desses processos, distinguindo-se na constituição da memória... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo)
Abstract: The concepts of rememory and renembrança are presented and defined in Toni Morrison‟s Beloved (1987) and Ana Miranda‟s Desmundo (1996), respectively, as mnemonic processes incorporated into the fictional space in order to revise official national historical perspectives. The American and the Brazilian novels were both based on facts that took place in crucial historical moments of the master narrative concerning the national formation of each country. Beloved revisits the crime committed by Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave, during the pre-Civil War years, when she killed her own daughter in an attempt to save her children from returning to slavery. Desmundo recollects the experiences of one of the Portuguese orphan girls sent to sixteenth-century colonial Brazil to serve as wives, by orders of the king and by the request of the priests who wanted to put an end to the sexual relations among Portuguese colonialists and natives. Rememory and Renembrança set the interrelations between memory, history and literature because they are the mnemonic processes engendered by the characters and, at the same time, they form the structure of the novels. Rememory is defined as the image that lasts (individually and in the world) when something no longer exists; renembrança originates from singular experiences and establishes relations with a fantasy world. The two processes share features related to the enigma of representation that recaptures past events, such as paradoxical constructions of absences and distances. However, rememory triggers collective memory whereas renembrança belongs to individual memory. The narrative strategies of each novel follow the characteristics of each process, distinguishing themselves in the creation of characters‟ memory and experiences. These differences, though, converge to a common objective of preventing the erasure of the past not only through... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)
Mestre
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Vera, Monica A. "Taking Issue with History: Empathy and the Ethical Imperatives of Creative Interventions." FIU Digital Commons, 2012. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/776.
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The purpose of this thesis was to contribute to a dialogue that considers the relationship between history, literature, and empathy as a literary affect. Specifically, I explored sites of literature’s transformative potential as it relates to cultural studies and the ethics of deconstruction. Via a deconstructive, post-colonial reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I considered how subjects in our current socio-political moment can feel history.
Emerging from a post-structurally mediated engagement with history, signification, and feeling, I argued that empathy, as it is contentiously presented in the context of deconstruction, is not necessarily a reductive or essentialist approach towards relating or “being-with” an-other. Instead, I proposed that the act of reading historiographical novels that take constructions of the Atlantic Slave Trade to task might generate an affective empathy, which could in turn engender a more empathetic relationality and way of being-in-the-world.
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Mathis, Rondrea Danielle. "'She Shall Not Be Moved': Black Women's Spiritual Practice in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Paradise, and Home." Scholar Commons, 2015. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5737.
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‘She Shall Not Be Moved’: Black Women’s Spiritual Practice in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Paradise, and Home argues that from The Bluest Eye, Morrison’s debut novel, to her 2012 novel, Home, Morrison brings her female characters to voice, autonomy, and personal divinity through unconventional spiritual work. The project addresses the history of Black women’s activist and spiritual work, Toni Morrison’s engagement with unconventional spiritual practice, and closes with a personal interrogation of the author’s connection to Black women’s spiritual practice.
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Parker, Deonne. "Haunted dwellings, haunted beings : the image of house and home in Allende, MacDonald, and Morrison." Thesis, McGill University, 2002. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=79801.
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This study examines the image of house and home as the reification of our domains as living, dwelling, housed beings in three novels: Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits; Anne-Marie MacDonald's Fall On Your Knees; and Toni Morrison's Beloved. Being human, we form through perception, build through forming, dwell in building, and perceive through dwelling. Through close reading and analysis, this thesis examines questions of: If we are how we dwell, then what happens when the structures and the spaces of our dwellings become haunted? What happens when "home" becomes a facade that suspends necessary elements of dwelling? This study projects that if we are how we dwell, the very nature of our being entails a constant questioning of what it is we allow a presence to in our how we form, build, dwell, and perceive within both tangible and intangible realms and the influential perspicacity literature bears within this process.
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Wike, Sofia. "The Denial of Motherhood in Beloved and Crossing the River : A Postcolonial Literary Study of How the Institution of Slavery Has Restricted Motherhood for Centuries." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Engelska, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-23447.
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The aim of this essay is to explore motherhood in two postcolonial literary works by African American author Toni Morrison and British author Caryl Phillips, who was born in the Caribbean. The essay is based on Morrison’s award winning novel Beloved, which was published in 1987 and was inspired by the escaping African American slave Margareth Garner. It is set just after the American Civil War and the novels deals with the trauma of slavery from the perspective of Sethe, a slave who kills her own daughter to save her from slavery. The second novel on which this essay is based is Caryl Phillips’ novel Crossing the River, which was published 1993 and focused on the African diaspora from different perspectives. Crossing the River is a non-chronological narrative covering four different characters (three African American people and one white slave trader during the eighteenth century). This essay, however, only deals with the last of the four narratives depicting white British Joyce who mothers a child with African American soldier Travis. The hypothesis on which the essay is based is that the institution of American slavery has denied the female protagonists in the two novels, Sethe and Joyce, their maternal selves. The analysis revealed that both women suffer from racial domination, and race, or simply skin color, is what leads to the maternal loss of the two protagonists. Both authors depict the world of the colonizer and the colonized and they address the common pain and guilt shared by black as well as white people.
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Story, Amy E. "Ethics and the boundaries of self : a study of Beauvoir and Levinas and a reading of Play as it lays and Beloved /." view abstract or download file of text, 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1421615581&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=11238&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007.Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 232-238). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.
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Pimentel, Clara Alencar Villaça. "“Eu vim de lá pequenininho, alguém me avisou pra pisar neste chão devagarinho”: diálogos diaspóricos entre Um Defeito de Cor, de Ana Maria Gonçalves e Beloved, de Toni Morrison." Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, 2011. https://repositorio.ufjf.br/jspui/handle/ufjf/2133.
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FAPEMIG - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais
Esta dissertação pretender ler comparativamente os romances Um Defeito de Cor, de Ana Maria Gonçalves e Beloved, de Toni Morrison. Através de Kehinde e Sethe, suas personagens principais, observamos aspectos como: constituição familiar escrava, corpo e sexualidade, memórias e heranças. Analisamos as condições para o exercício da maternidade no contexto escravocrata (de quais diferentes maneiras as personagens foram impedidas de exercê-lo), bem como as conseqüências do amor materno num cenário em que o crime era o ato que humanizava o escravo. Entendemos que as obras resgatam a narrativa não européia da colonização das Américas, dando espaço para vozes que ecoaram nos porões do Navio Negreiro e que hoje, fazem ouvir a “ressonância, o eco da vida-liberdade” (EVARISTO, 2008, p. 10-11). Assim, discutimos sobre a ficcionalidade e veracidade dos fatos tratados em ambos os romances. Na Introdução delimitamos as temáticas e a maneira como os romances serão abordados. No primeiro capítulo observamos os aspectos teóricos que embasam este trabalho, como: a questão da autoria, a Diáspora Negra, o Feminismo (Negro) e o Feminismo Transnacional. Dedicamo-nos ao romance Um Defeito de Cor no segundo capítulo, atentando para os seguintes aspectos: Luiz Gama, o Prólogo, o Romance, Corpo e Sexualidade, a Família Escrava e Heranças e Memória. Beloved será trabalhado no terceiro capítulo, analisando: Margaret Garner, o Prólogo, o Romance, Corpo e Sexualidade, Família Escrava e Heranças e Memórias. O quarto capítulo, conclusivo, dedica-se a aproximar semelhanças e destacar diferenças, especialmente no que diz respeito a: Constituição Familiar/Maternidade; Infanticídio; a Travessia; Memórias. Ana Maria Gonçalves e Toni Morrison, assim, cumprem o papel do contador de histórias, que mantém viva a tradição narrativa através do resgate e possibilitando a resolução de conflitos étnicos e de gênero.
This Master thesis aims at comparatively reading the novels Um Defeito de Cor, by Ana Maria Gonçalves and Beloved, by Toni Morrison. Through Kehinde and Sethe, main characters, we observe aspects such as: slave familiar constitution, body and sexuality, heritages and memories. We analyze the conditions for the exercise of motherhood in slavery context (in which different ways the characters were prevented from performing it), as well as the consequences mother-love achieved in a scenery in which crime was the act that humanized the slave. To our understanding the novels rescue non-European narratives of the colonization of Americas, providing space for the voices that echoed in the Slave Ship‟s basement, and that, nowadays, make loud the “resonance, the echo of life and freedom” (EVARISTO, 2008, p. 10-11). Therefore, we discuss fiction and „true facts‟, as a mean of building a net of credibility to the plot. In the Introduction, we delimit the themes and approaches to the novels. In the first chapter, we observe the theoretical aspects that ground this work, such as: authorship; Black Diaspora; (Black) Feminism and Transnational Feminism. The second chapter will be dedicated to Um Defeito de Cor, focusing on: Luiz Gama; the Foreword; the Novel; Body and Sexuality; Slave Family and Heritages and Memory. Beloved will be worked in the third chapter, analyzing: Margaret Garner; the Foreword; the Novel; Body and Sexuality; Slave Family and Heritages e Memory. The fourth chapter, the conclusion, is dedicated to approaching similarities and highlighting differences, especially concerning: Familiar Constitution/Motherhood; Infanticide; the Crossing through the Atlantic; Memories. Ana Maria Gonçalves and Toni Morrison, then, fill in the role of the storyteller, who keeps alive the narrative tradition through rescuing forgotten stories and giving way to the solution of ethnical and gender conflicts.
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Skrove, Katie Suzanne. "The power of voice: Cultural silencing and the supernatural in women's stories: Allende's The House of the Spirits, Kingston's The Woman Warrior, and Morrison's Beloved." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2002. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2382.
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This thesis focuses on a study of the female voice and silencing as well as on the use of the supernatural in selected works of literature from three different cultures: Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, and Toni Morrison's Beloved.
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Hansson, Michelle Folashade. "Signifying in Toni Morrison’s Beloved." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Engelska, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-29729.
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This essay discusses how language, culture and spirituality are intertwined and used as a defensive mechanism as well as an identity marker, with strong emphasis on Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Language is not just a means of communication, but an interweaving of cultural nuances and a means of establishing identity, demanding autonomy and defying powerlessness. Language is a tool that is embedded in the culture and traditions as well as the experiences of the user of that language. In Morrison’s Beloved, language is not just words used for the purpose of communication, but as a link between that which is real and that which is not; as a representation of a culture that celebrates the importance of remembering – linking the present with the past in a continuum that is particular to the culture, tradition and beliefs of the users. It also symbolises a means of defiance to powerlessness, by defecting from the norm. In Morrison’s Beloved, language as vernacular or “Black Man’s Talk” is characterised by puns, taunts, double-meanings and innuendos that are particular to the Black Race as a way of rejecting the status quo, of defying the white man’s language; of saying “Ah kin signify all Ah please, …., so long as Ah know what Ah’m talkin’ about” (Gates 212).
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Eckstein, Lars. "A love supreme : Jazzthetic strategies in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Universität Potsdam, 2006. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2012/6044/.
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Mattsson, Sophie. "A Matter of Choice : Ethical Dilemmas in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Thesis, Södertörn University College, School of Language and Culture, 2004. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-387.
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Frampton, Sara. "“I Bid My Hideous Progeny Go Forth and Prosper”: Frankenstein’s Homosocial Doubles and Twentieth Century American Literature." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/24370.
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This dissertation explores the reoccurrence of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein within twentieth-century American novels. While the inaccurate 1931 film version by James Whale remains the best known adaptation of Frankenstein, I argue that Willa Cather, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Chuck Palahniuk return to Shelley’s 1818 novel to critique racist and misogynistic responses to anxieties about gender and racial power in the age of industrial consumer culture. In doing so, I extend existing scholarship on the American Gothic to demonstrate that The Professor’s House, Invisible Man, Beloved, and Fight Club represent a specifically Shelleyan Gothic tradition in twentieth-century American literature.
My project draws upon influential feminist and postcolonial readings of Frankenstein and on the theoretical work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and later critics who have developed her theory to show how the twentieth-century novels echo themes and motifs from Shelley’s novel to critique the destructive effects of male homosociality. Each novel contains a protagonist that resembles Victor Frankenstein and responds to historically specific anxieties about gender, race, and industrial technoscience by creating a doppelgänger who enables participation in a homosocial bond that is initially empowering but proves destructive to women, racial minorities, and eventually the creature and creator figures themselves. My reading reveals unexpected similarities between Cather’s The Professor’s House and Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Cather’s novel appears to glorify Tom Outland as the ideal masculine hero but ultimately reveals him to be a monstrous doppelgänger who acts out the Professor’s oppressive impulses; similarly, Fight Club seems to romanticize the male violence instigated by the doppelgänger figure Tyler Durden but actually echoes Shelley’s critique of male homosociality as monstrous. My reading also reveals previously overlooked similarities between Invisible Man and Beloved, both of which feature a black protagonist who surprisingly resembles Victor Frankenstein by creating a doppelgänger to challenge his or her disempowerment by the structures of white male homosociality but end up emulating the destructive homosocial structures they critique. My dissertation shows how all of these writers share Shelley’s critique yet move beyond it by offering alternatives to the destructive cycle of violence, embodied in each case by a female figure who resists or reclaims the position of the abject other in the homosocial triangle.
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Leung, Chuen-lik Rachel, and 梁川力. "Identity, part and whole: Toni Morrison's Beloved and The Bluest Eye." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1999. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31952094.
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Papish, Corning Gail Ann. "A rhetoric of abandonment, the act of representation and Toni Morrison's "Beloved"." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0003/NQ44777.pdf.
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Bertilsson, Alvina. "Maternity : A Site of Empowerment, Resistance and Strength in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Thesis, Högskolan Väst, Avd för utbildningsvetenskap och språk, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-13811.
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Perna, Sonia. "Bodies as texts/bodies as agents, enslavement and resistance in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0014/MQ34907.pdf.
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Austine, Helena. "The persistence of memory : slavery and trauma in Tony Morrison's Beloved." FIU Digital Commons, 2007. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1338.
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The purpose of this study is to examine the personal narrative in the sub-genre of African-American literature known as the enslavement narrative. To do this, a deep reading of Toni Morrison's novel of slavery, Beloved (1987), will employ a psychological reading of slavery as trauma to reveal the tropes common to both the enslavement narrative and therapeutic discourses about trauma and its after effects. The personal narrative is the basis upon which the nineteenth century narrative of enslavement draws power and authority and is also of primary importance in understanding the phenomenon of psychological trauma. It is the aim of this study to examine where these two discourses overlap. By employing a deep reading of Beloved in context of psychological trauma, the African American autobiography as a literary project is found to be a means of resistance and reclamation of a whole, African American subjectivity.
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Kamaluldeen, Noor. "A Psychoanalytical Reading of Repression and the Process of Healing in Toni Morrison’s Beloved." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Engelska, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-27317.
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Forsberg, Carrie. "Possession, Displacement and the Uncanny : The Haunting Past of Slavery in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för humaniora, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-29157.
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This paper adopts a psychoanalytical approach to Toni Morrison’s Beloved by focusing on the significance of 124 Bluestone Road and the entity Beloved, as both a character and a source of displacement for the other characters as a result of the traumatic events that plagued them throughout the novel. In order to accomplish this, a close reading of passages dealing with this location’s haunting and the manifestation of Beloved as the flesh and blood spirit will be used to discuss the meaning behind the metaphor. Furthermore, certain psychological and literary terms will be utilized in the course of this analysis including: personification, repression, possession, metaphor, displacement and the uncanny in order to attempt to answer the question about how the author used these devices to narrate the trauma of the characters Sethe, Denver and Paul D, giving merit to their symbolic struggle with the trauma of their past and its negative impact on their identities.
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López, Ramírez Manuela. "Gothic chiaroscuro in nathaniel hawthorne's the house of the seven gables and Toni Morrison's Beloved." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de València, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/52088.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables and Toni Morrison’s Beloved share some important elements of the gothic tradition. One of the most complex themes of these two gothic romances is the past and its haunting. Whereas in Seven Gables the theme of the past is linked with the decline of “aristocracy” (colonialism) and growth of democracy; in Beloved it is closely associated with the theme of race. Both stories are haunted by the ghosts of the colonial past, addressing the connections between colonialism and the Negro. While Africanism is subtly woven into Seven Gables, Beloved focuses on the historical effect that slavery had on African-Americans. Both Hawthorne and Morrison delve into the ethical repercussions of human scientific endeavors for the soul and the anxieties about Western rational discourse. They depict the danger of the Faustian scientist’s pursuits. In Seven Gables, nineteenth-century science and technology appear as a counterforce of the Gothic burden of the past and the American pastoral myth. Beloved, however, attacks the racist use of science in a rural, pre-industrial society, conveying the complicity between slavery and science.
Seven Gables and Beloved deal with magic and the supernatural. Both Hawthorne and Morrison move between a realistic and fantastic world. They explore the supernatural and the connection between physical and spiritual life, fabricating a psychological and symbolical dimension through which they delve into the Gothic self. However, Hawthorne’s dealings with magic can be framed in the superstitious Puritan beliefs of New England, whereas Morrison’s ghosts should be inscribed in the black tradition. Both novels have as their primary settings the haunted house, a defining element of the Gothic tradition, the ruined Pyncheon mansion and 124, the spiteful house. The haunted house is a complex symbol and an organizing principle: the unreal world where Gothic nightmares come true.
These two romances depict the patriarchal family as the source of the individual’s gothic plight in Western society and as a basic structure of the Gothic narrative, and the fragmented Gothic self, its extreme feelings and its altered states of consciousness. Seven Gables and Beloved deal with Gothic stereotypes, such as the Gothic villain, characterized as an artist-scientist figure who engages in a Faustian contract. They also examine the role of the Gothic heroine, both the Fair and the Dark Lady, and gender relations in their gothic romances. There are other important gothic characterizations, such as the male friend and the old spinster.
Both Hawthorne and Morrison explore how sin and guilt are the shadows that darken the present life of the characters, symbolizing the tragedy of the sinful human soul. They are the main motivations of the characters’ actions. The wicked past of the Pyncheon family haunts them and rests upon their present lives as a result of their ancestors’ sins. Beloved draws clearly from Hawthorne’s tradition of delving into the guilty mind and the all-powerful evil, which pervades his romances. Evil is at the core of the slave system and its aftermath. Hawthorne and Morrison analize the relationship of the sinner with the community. They portray a Gothic world in which a guilty and ostracized individual engages in a search for self-definition. In both romances detachment from society is the result of a crime, while the continuity of the state of aloofness is due to the individual’s proud attitude. Its final consequence is punishment. However, the only way to have a future and fight the grasp of the past is inside the community. Seven Gables and Beloved are tales of expiation and retribution. After man’s fall from paradise, the guilty individual must fulfill his/her retribution to gain redemption.Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables y Toni Morrison’s Beloved comparten importantes elementos de la tradición gótica. Estas novelas muestran un mundo perverso en el que reinan la oscuridad y la opresión, una visión gótica que se aleja de las narrativas optimistas de la identidad americana. Uno de sus temas más complejos es el pasado y cómo éste atormenta a los personajes. Ambos romances describen las pesadillas de la historia americana; los fantasmas del pasado colonial y sus conexiones con la presencia del Negro. Estas novelas se convierten en metáforas sobre la identidad nacional. Hawthorne y Morrison examinan las repercusiones éticas del proyecto científico y la inquietud ante el discurso racional occidental. Seven Gables y Beloved se mueven en un mundo a la vez realista y fantástico, explorando la conexión entre la vida real y espiritual. Hawthorne y Morrison crean una dimensión psicológica y simbólica a través de la cual analizan la identidad gótica. Ambos romances tienen como su principal escenario la casa encantada, elemento definitorio de la tradición gótica. Seven Gables y Beloved recrean un mundo irreal donde las pesadillas góticas se hacen realidad. Estas dos novelas analizan como la familia patriarcal, como estructura básica de la narrativa gótica, está en el origen del conflicto de identidad del individuo en la sociedad occidental. Describen sus traumas a través de los estereotipos góticos: el villano, la doncella o la femme fatale. Hawthorne y Morrison muestran como el pecado y la culpa, las motivaciones principales de las acciones de los personajes, son las sombras que oscurecen su vida presente, simbolizando la tragedia del alma humana. Estas historias exploran la relación del “pecador” con su comunidad: el individuo culpable y marginado entabla una búsqueda de auto-definición. Éste sólo puede encontrar su futuro y finalmente liberarse de la carga del pasado en el seno de la comunidad. Seven Gables y Beloved son romances de expiación y retribución. Después de la expulsión del Paraíso, el “pecador” debe pagar por sus culpas para poder redimirse.
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Tisdale, Ashely. "Establishing the bondmother| Examining the categorization of maternal figures in Toni Morrison's Beloved and Paradise." Thesis, Florida Atlantic University, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10300331.
Full textAbstract:
Literary scholars have been examining and recreating the experiences of “bonded” female characters within Toni Morrison’s novels for decades. However, the distinct experiences of these enslaved women, that are also mothers have not been astutely examined by scholars and deserves more attention. My thesis fleshes out the characterization of several of Morrison’s bonded-mothers and identifies them as a part of a developing controlling image and theory, called the bondmother. Situating these characters within this category allows readers to trace their journeys towards freedom and personal redemption. This character tracing will occur by examining the following Toni Morrison novels: Beloved (1987) and Paradise (1997). In order to fully examine the experiences of these characters it will be necessary for me to expand the definition of bondage and mother.
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Thomas, Joan Potter. "Broken Branches: The Search for Ancestry in Toni Morrison's Novels "Song of Solomon" and "Beloved"." W&M ScholarWorks, 1991. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625676.
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