Friday, 25 May 2018


Text and Context in the Art of Toni Morrison (cont)


Although, the last word or name in the novel is “Beloved,” Kristin Boudreau suggests that contrary to the reading of several critics that Beloved was “story” to pass on” and thereby underscoring the commitment  to history that Morrison has emphasized over and over again, perhaps one should take Morrison’s words at face value and accept the fact that it was indeed, “not a story to pass on.”49 Boudreau’s contention is that it was “not a story to pass on” because Beloved finally becomes an absence.50 She will always embody that part of African-American history that modern day African-Americans do not want to remember. If Morrison can gesture towards the necessity of remembering she can also suggest elliptically, the necessity of forgetting. There are no real closures in the novel. . All this ties in very neatly with the poststructuralist skepticism that history is not a definitive text. However, in keeping with Morrison’s avowed commitment to History, we may accept Caroline Rody’s position that the text embodies, “the affective aspect of history writing, insofar as the historiographic project enacts a relationship of desire, and emotional implication of present and past.”51

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