Rememory To Be Disremembered--On The Calling For The Second Emancipation Of Blacks In Beloved

Black novels in the past often show the blacks' sufferings, wrestlings and fightings under slavery, but seldom touch their spiritual state after their emancipation. Toni Morrison's Beloved not only broadens the subject matters of the previous black novels but also reveals the psychological problems of the blacks after their emancipation. Beloved not only exposes the serious psychological blight in the emancipated blacks who are still living in the trauma caused by slavery, but also indicates the absolute need of the Second Emancipation for the blacks. In order to go out of the historical dark shadows in their hearts, the blacks must courageously face their humiliating past and, more importantly, to use the authoress' own words, disremember it in their memory for the sake of their present and their future.The thesis discusses the calling for the Second Emancipation of blacks in Beloved. The main body consists of three chapters.Chapter One examines the mental and physical trauma caused by slavery as well as the lingering damage inflicted in its survivors. Each of the characters has endured a furious past and almost all the blacks are unwilling to confront their past. Morrison in the novel paints a dark and powerful portrait of the dehumanizing effects of slavery. The slaves were thought by whites to be in some way animals. They lost their names and the power of definition, thus suffering the loss of identity. Though they are emancipated, they still live in the shadow of slavery. They act as if they were suffering from amnesia and repress the memory of slavery unconsciously. To get rid of the shadow of the past and the torture of the national amnesia, the blacks must learn to confront the past and get a clear understanding of the cause of their tortures. Beloved, representing the memory of the past, is able to make Sethe, Paul D, and Denver confront the original trauma as well as the past and reunite with their present and future.Chapter Two concentrates on the confronting of the humiliating past and the recovering of motherhood and manhood. The physical and psychological enslavement by whites makes the blacks live in the shadow of slavery. They are stuck between the reluctance to remember the horror of the past and the motivation to face it. So traumatic is this history that the characters try everything in their power to avert their eyes and deny its reality. For eighteenyears Sethe has been trying to repress her memory of the past. Her killing of the baby makes her lose her status as mother. Men like Paul D are deprived of their manhood. As a slave Paul D even feels no better than a rooster. Beloved's murder alienates the community, making Denver afraid of her mother and of whatever is terrible enough to make her kill her own. She has gone deaf and withdrawn from others. The return of Beloved in the fleshly form forces Sethe and Paul D to remember what they have tried unsuccessfully to forget. Through intimate contact with Beloved, Sethe regains motherhood, Paul D regains feeling and Denver walks out of isolation. They all begin a truly new life.Chapter Three discusses the necessity of disremembering the past for future survival. It is necessary for the blacks to look back and remember their past, but if they are stuck in the past and cannot look forward, it will do no good. However, it is no easy job to exorcise the legacy of their painful memory and it calls for the mutual help and support from the black community as well as the whites' participation.In Beloved, Morrison suggests a way through the door of memory. While the painful heritage of slavery cannot simply "pass on", enslavement to that heritage, Morrison implies, must "pass on". This can make possible the contemplation and creation of a future in which African Americans can respect and honor themselves and their ancestors—be loved.The originality of this thesis lies in a bold attempt to analyze the necessity of the second emancipation of black people from feminist and psychoanalytical points of view and it shows the new development in literary criticism.