Listed by Duotrope
a peer-reviewed quarterly journal on literature
E-ISSN 2457-0265
Acerca de
Erothanatos
Scholarly Article
Partha Sarathi Mondal
Rethinking History and Black Identity: An Examination of Toni Morrison's Paradise and Beloved through the Lens of New Historicism
Volume
8
Issue
3
Pages:
61-77
Keywords:
Morrison, history, black identity, New Historicism, irreversible.
doi:
Abstract
History is arguably the study of human history as recorded in written records that people have left behind. However, biased, incomplete, and partial historical records and documents can leave gaps in our knowledge of the past. History is therefore incomplete. Toni Morrison has attempted to recreate history and reinterpret the world from the perspectives of experience, culture, and nationality in her historical novels. As a writer, Toni Morrison feels compelled to acknowledge the gaps in history and to rewrite it in her books. Thus, re-patterning actual and fictional materials to re-enact and reconstruct the reality of a historical past that might not otherwise be reached, becomes an irreversible task for Morrison. Morrison believes that it is necessary to rewrite history with an inventive approach in order to discover the overlooked areas. But despite their appearance as historical witnesses and quasi-documentaries, Morrison's novels portray history as narrative, sometimes skewed on purpose, sometimes fantastical. In order to better understand how Toni Morrison reframes history and examines Black identity in her books Paradise and Beloved, this article will be using the New Historicist approach as a theoretical tool in the research.
About the Author
Partha Sarathi Mondal is an Assistant Professor at Shibpur Dinobundhoo Institution (College) affiliated to Calcutta University. His areas of specialization are Marginalized Literature, specifically Dalit Literature and African-American Literature. He has published a number of scholarly articles in many reputed journals. Besides, many poems penned by him have been published in The Creative Launcher, Erothanotos, The Criterion, New Literaria, Literary Voice etc. His book of poems entitled “The Poetic Rhapsody of a Deserted Soul” has been recently launched by Evincepub Publishing.