Anca Peiu considered the reckoning dialogue between Sixo and Schoolteacher at Sweet Home as a powerful example of oppression, violence and racism, symbolizing “the expression of the definers’ absolute privilege”. Sixo is a slave who steals a shoat and eats it and eventually is punished by the schoolteacher who ties him to a rope like an animal, sleeping among the sheep and the cows in a barn during the night, to show him that definitions are given by the ones in power. Unlike Twain’ Jim, who is offered his freedom from Miss Watson, Sixo “falls victim to white masters’ definitions” (Peiu, 2017; 318)
Lecturați gratuit TEACHING (RE) DEFINITIONS OF IDENTITY IN TONI MORRISON’S NOVEL BELOVED, autor Ramona Ruginescu
Lucrarea poate fi citită online doar în Librăria Scriitorilor (www.librariascriitorilor.ro). ISBN 978-606-30-5390-0
Starting from this dialogue that inspired my paper, I tried my best to expose the physical and mental wound left by trauma of slavery, thus other instances from the novel have been analyzed to show how bodies are inscribed, literally and metaphorically, by the oppressor, to enforce his identity on people of color. Those markers testify to the agonies of the past, bring self discovery and support the idea that the past is alive in the present. It was also significant to show the effect of the unbearable wound of the mind on individuals and communities.
It has been one of the basic concerns of my work to underscore the role of trauma narratives in reconstructing history in order to attain self-discovery and reconstruct new realities, subjectivities and identities.
That is why this paper aims at exploring the search for identity and the ways in which Toni Morrison has systematically recast the image and redefined the identity of African American people in her novel Beloved.