Entanglements of Trauma: The Intersectionality of Race, Gender, and Class in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Beloved
Author
Kilic, Nagihan
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2021
Submitted on
2021-06-02
Abstract
This thesis examines how Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) and Beloved (1987) depict entangled experiences of trauma at the intersection of race, gender, and class, with particular attention to Black women in the United States. Drawing on cultural trauma (Ron Eyerman), psychoanalytic trauma and memory theories (including Cathy Caruth and Evelyn J. Schreiber), cultural/collective memory, and Black feminist thought (bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins) together with intersectionality (Collins, Sirma Bilge, Kimberlé Crenshaw), the study conducts theory-guided close readings of the two novels. The analysis addresses racialization, gendered and classed marginalization, inherited and generational trauma, embodied memory, fragmentation of the self, Western beauty standards, social exclusion, shared remembrance and communal healing, as well as narrative strategies and Morrison’s use of spectrality to foreground silenced histories. The thesis argues that traumas linked to the cultural legacy of slavery shape identity and belonging across generations, that the body functions as a site of memory, and that storytelling, empathetic witnessing, and community-based remembrance enable the reconstruction of subjectivity and open possibilities for healing. In doing so, it clarifies how Morrison’s fiction illuminates intersectional dynamics and the central role of community and memory in working through trauma.
Denne specialeafhandling undersøger, hvordan Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye (1970) og Beloved (1987) skildrer sammenfiltringer af traume i krydsfeltet mellem race, køn og klasse med fokus på sorte kvinders erfaringer i USA. Med afsæt i kulturtraumeteori (Ron Eyerman), psykoanalytiske traume- og erindringsteorier (bl.a. Cathy Caruth og Evelyn J. Schreiber), kollektiv/kulturel hukommelse samt Black feminist thought (bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins) og intersektionalitet (Collins, Sirma Bilge, Kimberlé Crenshaw) foretager afhandlingen teoriinformerede nærlæsninger af de to romaner. Analysen adresserer temaer som racialisering, kønnet og klassespecifik marginalisering, nedarvet og generationelt traume, kropsliggjort erindring, fragmentering af selvet, vestlige skønhedsidealer, social udstødelse, fælles erindring og heling i fællesskabet, samt romanernes narrative greb og Morrisons brug af spektralitet til at synliggøre tavsede historier. Afhandlingen argumenterer for, at traumer forbundet med slaveriets kulturelle arv former identitet og tilhørsforhold på tværs af generationer, at kroppen fungerer som et sted for erindring, og at verbaliseret vidnesbyrd, empatisk vidne og fællesskabsbaseret erindring åbner mulighed for subjektivitet og heling. Herved bidrager studiet til en bredere forståelse af, hvordan Morrison litterært undersøger intersektionalitetens virkninger og fællesskabets rolle i bearbejdningen af traume.
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