Reconciliation with the Past for a New Self-Identification in Toni Morrison’s Beloved

Madoline Massaad

Vol-4,Issue-6,November - December 2019

Author: Madoline Massaad

Keywords: Trauma of slavery, repressed memories, reconcile with the past, black community, black identity.

Abstract: In this paper, slavery and its atrocities are discussed in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”. Through this novel black’s emotions, lives, and experiences are highlighted to make them visible; as they were invisible, silenced, and forgotten in the past. It reveals and explains the tension between forgetting and remembering past experiences through unspoken memory and how it acts on their lives: physically, emotionally, and psychologically. In order to heal from these abominable agonizing experiences, the disturbed ex-slaves must oppose and challenge the repressed memories

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.46.51