The Haunted House in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy

In A Mercy Toni Morrison tackles the multilayered and strikingly powerful Gothic “haunted” house metaphor from a female perspective. Her revenants and hauntings are not just individual, but also historical, political and cultural manifestations. Through the Gothic dwelling, Morrison explores the fragmented personal and familial identities, conventional gender arrangements, failed domestic ideology, racist and colonial past, etc., in a patriarchal society dominated by whites. Her transgressive rewriting draws attention to the impact of slavery and racism and, consequently, to the othering of ethnic females, especially blacks. Morrison not only depicts the unspeakable horrors of American history, but also provides ways for its regeneration, such as women’s empowerment and their struggle for self-definition. Morrison’s revisitation of the “haunted” house formula offers an alternative female perspective on American identity and history.En A Mercy Toni Morrison aborda la poderosa y compleja metáfora de la casa gótica “encantada” desde una perspectiva femenina. Sus fantasmas no son exclusivamente individuales, sino manifestaciones históricas, políticas y culturales. Mediante la mansión gótica, Morrison analiza la fragmentada identidad personal y familiar, las convenciones de género, la fallida ideología doméstica, el pasado racista y colonial, etc., en una sociedad patriarcal dominada por blancos. Su reescritura transgresora destaca el impacto de la esclavitud y el racismo y, consecuentemente, la alterización de la mujer étnica, especialmente las negras. Morrison no sólo describe los inefables horrores góticos de la historia americana, sino que también proporciona formas de regeneración, tales como el empoderamiento de la mujer y su lucha por autodefinición. La revisitación de Morrison de la fórmula de la casa “encantada” ofrece una perspectiva femenina alternativa de la identidad e historia americanas

Sula, una mujer oscura.

Through Sula (the main character of Toni Morrison’s eponymous novel), Morrison reinterprets the concept of the Dark Lady of the traditional Gothic romance. She is a demonic female, who de fies the Law of the Father in her search for identity. As the embodiment of subversion, she becomes the “village witch”, the symbolic expression of the African community’s confrontation with evil. In fact, through Sula, Morrison reflects intensively on evil. The demonic female comes to be a scapegoat, the target of the black community’s social frustrations. Sula is a modern Dark Lady with a radical power of self-creation and self-af firmation

The pattern of severed mother-daughter bond in Toni Morrison's "Beloved" and "A Mercy"

In Beloved and A Mercy Toni Morrison revisits the mother-daughter plot, focusing on the feminine. She explores the female black slave’s appalling oppression through the traumatic separation of a slave mother from her daughter, which destroys the emotional ties between them and causes terrible effects on both their psyches. Morrison describes her heroines’ identity journey from “desertion” to wholeness. The black female slave’s unspeakable ordeal unveils her humanity and courage, convulsing the patriarchal slave system.En Beloved y A Mercy Toni Morrison revisita el argumento de la madre e hija, centrando su atención en lo femenino. Ella explora la atroz opresión de la esclava negra a través de la traumática separación entre la madre esclava y su hija, que destruye los vínculos emocionales que las unen y causa terribles efectos en sus psiques. Morrison narra el viaje de identidad de sus heroínas desde el “abandono” a la integridad emocional. El auténtico calvario de la esclava negra desvela su humanidad y coraje, convulsionando el sistema patriarcal de la esclavitud

“Childhood Cuts Festered and Never Scabbed Over”: Child Abuse in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child

Toni Morrison revisits one of the main thematic concerns, child abuse and trauma, of her premier novel, The Bluest Eye, in her latest book God Help the Child. She has actually dealt profusely with all sorts of child maltreatment in her oeuvre. In her recent narrative, Morrison weaves a tangled web of childhood trauma stories, in which all of the characters have suffered some kind of abuse: neglect, witnessing domestic violence, emotional and psychological abuse, molestation, sexual abuse, etc. She shows how the child’s exposure to traumatic experiences has dramatic far-reaching effects into adulthood, such as psychological, emotional, behavioral and social problems. Morrison explores the curse of the past, the legacy of slavery and its aftermath, and its hold on the present, through the phenomenon of colorism. Racism and intra-racial discrimination based on the skin color result in childhood trauma. Children may adopt coping strategies to resist maltreatment or they may internalize oppression and accept self-loathing. Violence generates violence, a vicious cycle which will eventually make the victims future victimizers. Nonetheless, God Help the Child is not only about childhood abuse and trauma, but it is also about transformation and healing. Morrison describes the characters’ restorative journeys towards redemption

Margaret Atwood´s Grace Marks as an Outcast: Rewriting Nathaniel Hawthorne´s Hester Prynne

Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace rewrites Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Both Grace Marks and Hester Prynne epitomize women’s oppression by the patriarchal system, and demonstrate how they challenge and defy it. They are both “criminals,” outcasts that cannot fit in the ideal of True Womanhood of their times because deviant females were shunned from “respectable society.” In the Victorian era, they were denied agency in their transgression, or deemed as monsters. Murderesses inspired fascination and stupor. Hester and Grace gain some empowerment and redemption when they confront their communities, in some measure, through their feminine skills, sewing and quilting.</div

Gothic tropes in Toni Morrison’s Home: The scientist-villain figure and the maiden in distress

Toni Morrison recurre a tropos góticos para tratar la relación de la víctima y el victimizador entre las figuras góticas del científico villano y la doncella inocente y vulnerable, que simboliza la opresión racial del sistema público de sanidad americano, así como el desprecio y la baja autoestima que la sociedad racista inculca en los individuos negros. Morrison desvela los procedimientos eugenésicos de doctores blancos en mujeres negras, que fueron objeto de experimentación sin su consentimiento. A la perspectiva inhumana eugenésica hacia los “indeseables” afro-americanos, ella contrapone su lucha por mantener su humanidad y conseguir una identidad plena en un mundo occidental patriarcal, dominado por blancos, lleno de violencia y de horrores góticos.Toni Morrison resorts to Gothic tropes to depict the victim-victimizer relationship between the Gothic scientist-villain figure and the vulnerable innocent maiden, who epitomizes the racial oppression of the U.S. Public Health System, as well as the self-loathing and low selfesteem the racist society instills in black individuals. Morrison unveils the eugenic procedures of white doctors on black women, who were experimented on without their consent. To the eugenicists’ inhumane approach to “undesirable” African Americans, she opposes their struggle to keep their humanity and achieve wholeness in a white-dominated patriarchal Western world full of violence and Gothic horrors

THE PATTERN OF SEVERED MOTHER-DAUGHTER BOND IN TONI MORRISON’S BELOVED AND A MERCY

In Beloved and A Mercy Toni Morrison revisits the mother-daughter plot, focusing on the feminine. She explores the female black slave’s appalling oppression through the traumatic separation of a slave mother from her daughter, which destroys the emotional ties between them and causes terrible effects on both their psyches. Morrison describes her heroines’ identity journey from “desertion” to wholeness. The black female slave’s unspeakable ordeal unveils her humanity and courage, convulsing the patriarchal slave system.En Beloved y A Mercy Toni Morrison revisita el argumento de la madre e hija, centrando su atención en lo femenino. Ella explora la atroz opresión de la esclava negra a través de la traumática separación entre la madre esclava y su hija, que destruye los vínculos emocionales que las unen y causa terribles efectos en sus psiques. Morrison narra el viaje de identidad de sus heroínas desde el “abandono” a la integridad emocional. El auténtico calvario de la esclava negra desvela su humanidad y coraje, convulsionando el sistema patriarcal de la esclavitud

Gothic chiaroscuro in nathaniel hawthorne's the house of the seven gables and Toni Morrison's Beloved

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables and Toni Morrison’s Beloved share some important elements of the gothic tradition. One of the most complex themes of these two gothic romances is the past and its haunting. Whereas in Seven Gables the theme of the past is linked with the decline of “aristocracy” (colonialism) and growth of democracy; in Beloved it is closely associated with the theme of race. Both stories are haunted by the ghosts of the colonial past, addressing the connections between colonialism and the Negro. While Africanism is subtly woven into Seven Gables, Beloved focuses on the historical effect that slavery had on African-Americans. Both Hawthorne and Morrison delve into the ethical repercussions of human scientific endeavors for the soul and the anxieties about Western rational discourse. They depict the danger of the Faustian scientist’s pursuits. In Seven Gables, nineteenth-century science and technology appear as a counterforce of the Gothic burden of the past and the American pastoral myth. Beloved, however, attacks the racist use of science in a rural, pre-industrial society, conveying the complicity between slavery and science. Seven Gables and Beloved deal with magic and the supernatural. Both Hawthorne and Morrison move between a realistic and fantastic world. They explore the supernatural and the connection between physical and spiritual life, fabricating a psychological and symbolical dimension through which they delve into the Gothic self. However, Hawthorne’s dealings with magic can be framed in the superstitious Puritan beliefs of New England, whereas Morrison’s ghosts should be inscribed in the black tradition. Both novels have as their primary settings the haunted house, a defining element of the Gothic tradition, the ruined Pyncheon mansion and 124, the spiteful house. The haunted house is a complex symbol and an organizing principle: the unreal world where Gothic nightmares come true. These two romances depict the patriarchal family as the source of the individual’s gothic plight in Western society and as a basic structure of the Gothic narrative, and the fragmented Gothic self, its extreme feelings and its altered states of consciousness. Seven Gables and Beloved deal with Gothic stereotypes, such as the Gothic villain, characterized as an artist-scientist figure who engages in a Faustian contract. They also examine the role of the Gothic heroine, both the Fair and the Dark Lady, and gender relations in their gothic romances. There are other important gothic characterizations, such as the male friend and the old spinster. Both Hawthorne and Morrison explore how sin and guilt are the shadows that darken the present life of the characters, symbolizing the tragedy of the sinful human soul. They are the main motivations of the characters’ actions. The wicked past of the Pyncheon family haunts them and rests upon their present lives as a result of their ancestors’ sins. Beloved draws clearly from Hawthorne’s tradition of delving into the guilty mind and the all-powerful evil, which pervades his romances. Evil is at the core of the slave system and its aftermath. Hawthorne and Morrison analize the relationship of the sinner with the community. They portray a Gothic world in which a guilty and ostracized individual engages in a search for self-definition. In both romances detachment from society is the result of a crime, while the continuity of the state of aloofness is due to the individual’s proud attitude. Its final consequence is punishment. However, the only way to have a future and fight the grasp of the past is inside the community. Seven Gables and Beloved are tales of expiation and retribution. After man’s fall from paradise, the guilty individual must fulfill his/her retribution to gain redemption.Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables y Toni Morrison’s Beloved comparten importantes elementos de la tradición gótica. Estas novelas muestran un mundo perverso en el que reinan la oscuridad y la opresión, una visión gótica que se aleja de las narrativas optimistas de la identidad americana. Uno de sus temas más complejos es el pasado y cómo éste atormenta a los personajes. Ambos romances describen las pesadillas de la historia americana; los fantasmas del pasado colonial y sus conexiones con la presencia del Negro. Estas novelas se convierten en metáforas sobre la identidad nacional. Hawthorne y Morrison examinan las repercusiones éticas del proyecto científico y la inquietud ante el discurso racional occidental. Seven Gables y Beloved se mueven en un mundo a la vez realista y fantástico, explorando la conexión entre la vida real y espiritual. Hawthorne y Morrison crean una dimensión psicológica y simbólica a través de la cual analizan la identidad gótica. Ambos romances tienen como su principal escenario la casa encantada, elemento definitorio de la tradición gótica. Seven Gables y Beloved recrean un mundo irreal donde las pesadillas góticas se hacen realidad. Estas dos novelas analizan como la familia patriarcal, como estructura básica de la narrativa gótica, está en el origen del conflicto de identidad del individuo en la sociedad occidental. Describen sus traumas a través de los estereotipos góticos: el villano, la doncella o la femme fatale. Hawthorne y Morrison muestran como el pecado y la culpa, las motivaciones principales de las acciones de los personajes, son las sombras que oscurecen su vida presente, simbolizando la tragedia del alma humana. Estas historias exploran la relación del “pecador” con su comunidad: el individuo culpable y marginado entabla una búsqueda de auto-definición. Éste sólo puede encontrar su futuro y finalmente liberarse de la carga del pasado en el seno de la comunidad. Seven Gables y Beloved son romances de expiación y retribución. Después de la expulsión del Paraíso, el “pecador” debe pagar por sus culpas para poder redimirse