| As a literary mechanism, the ghost metaphor effectively signals traumatic moments in history. Ghosts are inherently disruptive to the status quo just by virtue of straddling various boundaries: life/death and reality/fiction, among others. As a result, marginalized communities can use this subversive trope to unearth then address forgotten or erased memories of trauma. Although Toni Morrison and Pedro Almodovar approach the subject matter with different mediums and under distinct cultural contexts, they both employ the ghost metaphor to execute their historically recuperative projects in a more creative manner. This project explores the ways in which Beloved and Volver both demonstrate this principle par excellence. |
