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Abstract： Beloved is a Pulitzer Prize -winning novel by Toni Morrison. It tells the story of Sethe and her daughter Denver as they try to rebuild their lives after having escaped from slavery. Because of the painful nature of the experience of slavery， most characters repress their memory and experience the loss of selves. The novel opens them up to their repressed memories. Only through re-memory can they have the possibility to heal their trauma and regain their identities.

Key Words：re-memory Beloved trauma

1 Introduction

Beloved， Toni Morrison's fifth novel， is the book that has to exist. The publication of Beloved was a conscious act toward healing a bitter trauma： a memorial to the great wrong of the enslavement of African Americans. As the only woman black writer who has won the Nobel Prize of Literature， Morrison often speaks of the role of the black novelist in the world as one to address and explore issues meaningful to the welfare of the whole world community. In this critically acclaimed novel， Morrison uses memory as a kind of narrative to show the reader the hidden side of slavery which the characters are forced to face before this trauma gets healed， although she said “it is about something the characters don’t want to remember， I don’t want to remember， black people don’t want to remember， white people don’t want to remember”. The novel illustrates the relationship between history and memory. History provides the exterior view of slavery， and memory is the personal， interior view.

2 Re-memory

“124 was spiteful”， the first sentence has set the general tone of the whole novel. What we feel is a kind of horror and melancholy. However， it is after an elaborate depiction of the haunted house and its affects on people that we initially encounter the word “Beloved” associated with “Dearly”. The horror brought by the specter results in the fleeing of Seth’s two sons， in the end， “Sethe and her daughter were its only victims”. As the story goes on， each character is forced to encounter his trauma， and the process of healing occurs in the mean time. Since many of these memories have been repressed for a long time， the process of uncovering them is slow and painful. In the novel， Beloved is not only a helper who brings the memories of the sorrowful past back into the present， she herself is that memory. Sethe killed Beloved， according to Stamp Paid， because she “was trying to outhurt the hurter.” “She love 〔sic〕those children”. Loving as a slave， according to Paul D （whom Stamp Paid is trying to persuade with his assessment of Sethe's motivation）， meant loving small， loving in an unobvious way so that whatever was loved did not become part of a technique of punishment. Paul D's advice， and his credo， was to “love just a little bit” so that when the slave owners took whatever or whoever the slave loved and “broke its back， or shoved it in a croaker sack， well， maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one”. Ella， another ex-slave who was loved by no one and who considered “love a serious disability”， lived by the simple dictum “Don't love nothing”. When Paul D learns of Sethe's infanticide， he tells her that her love is “too thick”. She responds by telling him， “Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all”. Although Paul D lives by his philosophy本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。