Postmodern Narrative Strategies In Beloved

Toni Morrison, the famous contemporary American writer, has gained a worldwide reputation as one of the best novelists in the history of American literature. Her winning the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature makes her the first female African American so honored and marks not only a personal triumph but also the recognition of the artistry of African American fiction. She is one of the most prominent black female writers whose works are characterized by diverse narrative techniques, profound epic themes, and poetic language .Her Beloved which is awarded with Pulitzer Prize, is a monumental work in postmodern American fiction, which is characterized by diverse narrative techniques. As a writer, she combined her personal charm and the insight with some postmodern ideas for readers. Her masterpiece Beloved is highlighted by critics as "a milestone in black literature history."The writer of the thesis presents why Beloved achieves such extraordinary success lies in her peculiar artistic skills. Beloved, rooted in African-American cultures, also employ the essence of Euro-American literature to serve the writing, especially postmodern narrative techniques. The thesis is an attempt at making a tentative and systematic analysis of narrative chronology, time, stream of consciousness and the voices of Beloved in the postmodern narrative techniques. The thesis begins with a brief survey of the biography of Toni Morrison to estimate how Morrison's childhood, as well as her working experiences impinges on her reputation for Beloved. The second part makes a brief investigation about the criticism of Beloved so far done. The concentration is mainly on its artistic narrative strategies. By review, the paper attempts to make a combination between the skill and the theme involved. This main section focuses on the complete and skillful adoption of postmodern narrative techniques in Beloved.As a "witness bearer" to observe or experience the "reality" herself, Morrison senses that the slaves bear so many traumas that any normal or chronological narration could not reveal the drudgery and humiliation of slavery to their wounded heart. Thus, she descending from the African storytelling tradition, attempts the narration strategies to problematize the project of writing the story of slavery. Beloved, poignantly dramatizes a tension between the blocking of story-telling and its eruption, exploring the access potential of narration in recovering the repressed past, retrieving memory, and fighting the suppression of individual and communal voice. In addition, The Research into the novel's essential narrative technique is in a rare and scarce state, though many articles or comments have been published increasingly. Whether at home or abroad, narrative technique or the theme conveyed by the novel is scholarly discussed and a great number of monographs and famous magazines have appeared to guide reader's understanding, however, there is no critic who researches on the theme by analyzing the peculiar postmodern narrative strategies, and there is no consistent voice on the major theme.Based on t above reasons , the paper is intended to explore Beloved from the perspective of postmodern characteristic of its narrative strategies to estimate that Morrison's simultaneous working thought of history and memory makes the novel fantastic not only for projects of remembrance and revision, through the detailed analysis of postmodern narrative strategies of Beloved, the thesis comes to explore its aesthetic value and eminent theme: Recalling Negro's wretched history under horrifying institution of slavery and constructing a harmonious relationship between the black and the white ultimately.