The Exploration of the Cultural Haunting and the Inclusion of Mythology in Toni Morrison’s Beloved

Abstract

This workengages in a cultural and mythological discussion of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. It explores the existence of elements and symbols of ghostly haunting and how they reflect the protagonist’s dilemma to struggle with the slavery of the past, and her fight in order to protect her children from their slave masters. Besides, the study shows the writer’s use of myths like the mother’s myth, the trickster myth, and the myth of the rebirth in order to explain their wide effect and relation with history of African Americans’ slavery. Toni Morrison includes those mythological manifestations because she wants to glorify the image of the mythic mother who is ready to scarify for her children and save them from the dehumanizing consequences of slavery.