Literary Monuments: Home as a Commemorative Novel.
When asked about the genesis of her novel Home, Toni Morrison argues that it was her intention to “take the scab off the 50s” in the United States, dig underneath and bring to the fore the silenced (hi)stories concerning African Americans. In the fashion of a true archeologist—a literary one—Morriso...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2015 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Sevilla (US) |
| Repositorio: | idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:idus.us.es:11441/53864 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/11441/53864 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Toni Morrison Home Commemoration Memory History Conmemoración Memoria Historia |
| Sumario: | When asked about the genesis of her novel Home, Toni Morrison argues that it was her intention to “take the scab off the 50s” in the United States, dig underneath and bring to the fore the silenced (hi)stories concerning African Americans. In the fashion of a true archeologist—a literary one—Morrison, once again, rips the veil of enforced deliberate oblivion and commemorates the lives, ordeals and achievements of the historically and socially dispossessed. This essay aims to explore and analyze such commemoration and how it is undertaken. Home, and its (re)creation, is an important object of remembrance and commemoration in this novel but it is not the only one. War veterans, Jim Crow victims, female culture bearers, quilters, love, self-love, agency, identity, survival and nature are all paid tribute to and celebrated. As she did in previous works such as Beloved or Jazz, from succinct glimpses of a historical event Morrison creates a literary work in which history, imagination and memory intermingle. In Home, commemoration occurs against the backdrop of the Korean War, racism and segregation in the pre-Civil Rights Movement, but the main focus is placed on how those events affect characters and their lives. In the commemorative literary project that Morrison’s ouvre represent, Home stands—like its man and its horses—as a true beautifully crafted literary monument. |
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