A Study Of Transgenerational Trauma In Toni Morrison’s God Help The Child

Toni Morrison（1931-2019）,the first black American female Nobel Prize winner for Literature,aims at depicting the traumatic history of African Americans.From her debut work The Bluest Eye（1970）to her last novel God Help the Child（2015）,Morrison has published 11 novels in her more than 40 years of creative career.All of Morrison’s works go back to a specific historical period,from the embryonic stage of slavery in Massachusetts in the 17th century,the period when slavery was just abolished in the 19th century to the situation of black soldiers returning to their motherland after the Vietnam War in the 20th century.Different from all previous works,Morrison first sets foot in the story with the contemporary era as the background in God Help the Child.The important reason for Morrison’s contemporary writing is that she finds that racial discrimination and racial trauma are hurting the young generation of blacks in a more hidden and imperceptible way.As early as 2015,Morrison has been keenly aware of the new changes of racism in the era of diversity,and thinks about what racial trauma means to contemporary black youth and what attitude they should choose to face such traumatic memory.In God help the child,Morrison utilizes magical realism to describe the two strange physical phenomena of the heroine post-90s black girl Bride,namely "skin color throwback" and "body atrophy".These two magical physical changes have uncovered the hidden and unspeakable scars on the new generation of black American youth represented by Bride.Focusing on transgenerational trauma,this thesis explores the transmission mechanism of racial trauma between different generations of blacks,the ways and ethical dilemmas of trauma healing,and Morrison’s attitude towards racial trauma healing.In the first chapter,the individual trauma experienced by the protagonists Bride,Booker and the personal symptoms caused by the trauma are summarized by means of close reading of the text.Then,taking Bride’s "skin color throwback" as an entry point,this paper analyzes the causes of trauma and explores the impact of slavery on them.In the second chapter,regarding family as the basic unit of racial trauma,this thesis analyzes the black family mode and examines how trauma is transmitted and inherited through the body across generations.The third chapter probes into what kind of ethical dilemma the new black generation in the so-called post-racial era is facing and what makes them unable to get rid of the transgenerational trauma.At the same time,the healing of trauma also has two sides,which may render the cultural memory carried by traumatic events disappears together.Finally,this thesis will also explore Morrison’s attitude towards the possibility of trauma healing from the details in the text.