Reading Toni Morison’s Beloved as a Gothic Text

Abstract

Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) is widely considered a representative of gothic novel, since it involves the gothic elements under the background of slavery in the southern United States. Various genres are circulating in Beloved such as the gothic novel, and the ghost story. Both the ghost and its incarnation together offer Morrison the occasion to investigate the unspeakable truth of such potent sufferings inflicted upon Sethe and Beloved under the burden of slavery. In exploring the way Morrison manipulates the gothic elements, she unfolds a new realm of narration, in which the tale of the supernatural is revealed through disconnected time framework, and among disintegrated facts and images. To be more specific, the core of this novel exposes a theme about the impossibility of articulation, which deforms and disfigures slaves, and the eventual transformation of the horrible with the representation of the gothic elements. If the Gothic is often associated and represented with monstrous otherness, past horror and social injustice, then this exploration of the gothic elements in Beloved scrutinizes the Gothic and further concludes by seeing it with a perceptive presentation as a “subject,” in which the selfhood seems to dwell. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the use of Gothic elements in Tony Morrison’s novel Beloved. As a result, this study shows that Gothic elements contribute to Toni Morrison’s stories in two ways. Firstly, they add to the depiction of minor characters, the setting, and the atmosphere of these stories. Secondly, they manifest themselves in the portrayal of the character of Seth herself. Thus, the use of Gothic elements enables Morrison to create suspenseful and surprising stories with a strikingly memorable African-American figure.