Trauma And Recovery: A Study Of The Maternal Infanticide In Beloved

During the past ten years, Toni Morrison's Beloved has been read as a novel of trauma by critics mostly from feminist approach or psychoanalytic approach. While feminist scholars center on slavery's influence on either black motherhood or the mother-daughter relationships, psychoanalysts mainly focus on the traumatic symptoms the major characters exhibit or the damaging effects traumas from slavery have brought to them. No critics, however, have provided a systematic analysis of the most representative infanticidal trauma Morrison depicts with a sizable part in the novel. This thesis intends to cover this research gap by giving a detailed exploration of the novel's maternal infanticide from the perspective of trauma and recovery so that interpretation and appreciation of Beloved will be enriched and extended.This thesis proceeds correspondently in the way which theorists adopt in their trauma studies, first with an exploration of the causes of trauma, then the traumatic symptoms and finally the recovery from trauma. It asserts that Sethe's infanticide is a result of both her personal traumatic experiences and the collective trauma slavery brings to the black community. After the infanticide, both Sethe and her family exhibit traumatic symptoms such as belatedness and dissociation. Despite suffering a lot after the infanticide, the mother Sethe finally recovers from her infanticidal trauma through giving testimonies and reestablishing relationships with significant others.This thesis concludes that under slavery, maternal infanticide is not only a personal trauma, but also a historical trauma. In order to achieve the personal and communal recovery, the trauma survivors must be able to give testimonial narratives to an effective witness and meanwhile have accessibility to the co-presence of the caring and accepting others as well as a welcoming context.