A Study Of The Traumas Of Toni Morrison’s Home, A Mercy And Beloved

Toni Morrison (1931-) is a shining star in history of contemporary American literature. Her works show great care to the living situations of the black people, especially the oppressed black women, which reflect the relationship between the black and the white and strongly criticize the slavery system and racial discrimination. Up to now, scholars have seldom studied Home, A Mercy and Beloved together. Based on the trauma theory, this thesis intends to analyze Morrison’s three novels, namely Home, A Mercy and Beloved from war trauma, women trauma and collective trauma individually. It displays the psychology and trauma of those who are afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder and uncovers the reasons of the traumas, explores effective methods for trauma and attempts to dig out Toni Morrison’s cultural ideal.Based on the text, the thesis analyzes three works separately. First of all, this thesis concentrates on the war trauma of Frank, the protagonist in Home; represents the traumatic symptom of Frank’s war trauma such as hallucination and lack of security and so on. Besides, in this chapter, the social and historical backgrounds and factors that prompt Frank’s trauma are analyzed, and the meaning of love from community and family and self in appeasing trauma and rebuilding self is highlighted. Secondly, it selects four women characters of different races, namely Florens, Lina, Sorrow and Rebekka in A Mercy as study objects to study the women trauma in the colonial period. It points out that some factors such as unhappy childhood caused by family society short of love; traumatic experiences in one’s life and disunities among women contribute to women trauma. Furthermore, it points out that women can recover from trauma by writing, seeking the sense of belonging by returning to the ethnic group, and understanding the maternal love. Thirdly, by the resurgence of the ghost, the thesis explores the collective trauma of the three generation of black people in Beloved, and this part analyzes the spiritual and physical injuries the black affliction. Through analysis, it is found that love between mother and daughter, sexual love and community love play an important role in rebuilding the connection with society, creating new life and embracing new life. In conclusion, in the three novels, the author finds that Morrison expresses the same cultural ideal-love, which includes self-love, family love, sexual love and community love. Toni Morrison, as a highly responsible writer, makes an exploration toward trauma and makes some constructive suggestion of trauma recovery by paying attention to the theme of trauma and enriching the conception of love. In essence, she eulogizes the cultural concept of love and harmony.