Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Education
Slavery, Motherhood, And Recurring Trauma In Toni Morrison’S Beloved, Erik Lorenz
Slavery, Motherhood, And Recurring Trauma In Toni Morrison’S Beloved, Erik Lorenz
Journal of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research
This paper explores how Toni Morrison, in her novel Beloved, treats the myriad ways in which slavery as a class system inflicted trauma on Black mothers and daughters, and how this trauma repeated itself to ripple outside slavery into freedom. Using historical research, E. P. Thompson’s definition of class, and Cathy Caruth’s work in trauma theory, an analysis of Morrison’s mother characters reveals a pattern: the pressures of the slavery class system warped mother-daughter relationships, inflicting trauma, and the trauma seemed fated to repeat itself over generations. Whether Morrison’s mothers were traumatized by labor demands competing with childcare for the …
Power Reclaimed And Given: Female Passivity And Agency In Harris, Brand, And Smith, Annika Northrop
Power Reclaimed And Given: Female Passivity And Agency In Harris, Brand, And Smith, Annika Northrop
Journal of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research
The paper “Power Reclaimed and Given: Female Passivity and Agency in Harris, Brand, and Smith” explores representations of women in art in Claire Harris’ “After Image,” Dionne Brand’s “Blues Spiritual for Mammy Prater,” and Ali Smith’s How to be both. Harris’ poem depicts a woman, who is the subject of a male photographer’s photos and who has been objectified and relegated to passivity by the photographer, in the active process of reclaiming the power to create her own identity. Brand’s poem shows Mammy Prater as a woman who, although formerly subjugated and abused, has already reclaimed that power; in …