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The Persistence Of Memory : Slavery And Trauma In Tony Morrison's Beloved, Helena Austine

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the personal narrative in the sub-genre of African-American literature known as the enslavement narrative. To do this, a deep reading of Toni Morrison's novel of slavery, Beloved (1987), will employ a psychological reading of slavery as trauma to reveal the tropes common to both the enslavement narrative and therapeutic discourses about trauma and its after effects. The personal narrative is the basis upon which the nineteenth century narrative of enslavement draws power and authority and is also of primary importance in understanding the phenomenon of psychological trauma. It is the aim of …