The Topics of Trauma and Memory in Toni Morrison's 'Beloved'

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, , language: English, abstract: This term paper is concerned with the topic of trauma reflected in Toni Morrison's novel 'Beloved', published in 1987. The aim of the term paper is to exemplify the widespread topics of trauma and memory and to analyse in how far Morrison manages to illustrate them in 'Beloved'. Besides, I will concentrate on Morrison's strategies to integrate the themes of trauma and memory into the novel and to illustrate these subjects to the reader. The first part of the term paper will be concerned with a general overview of the issue of trauma. More precisely, I will define trauma and analyse in how far it is related to the idea of memory. The themes of memory and trauma are wide-spread so that I will concentrate on the most important characteristics which can be linked to the novel. In the second part of the term paper I am going to figure out in which ways the topic of trauma is symbolised in Beloved. In this context, my focus is on the use of the colour red as a symbol and metaphor. The next step will be to handle the repression of memory. At this point, I will briefly mention Sethe's strategies of repressing memory. After that, I am going to concentrate on the return of the repressed memory. In doing so, I will refer to the memories of Sweet Home, the place Sethe lived as a slave, and to the memories of the Infanticide. For the most part, these memories belong to Sethe but I will also refer to other main characters of the novel which are important in this context. When referring to the memories of Sweet Home, Paul D plays an important role as Sethe's interaction partner whereas the role of the ghost and afterwards girl named 'Beloved' is significant by regarding the memories of the Infanticide.