A Critique on the Application of Flashback as a Unique Narrative Tool in ‘Beloved’by Tony Morrison
Ms. B. Kalpana Dr. P. Suresh
M.Phil. Research Scholar Assistant Professor
Department of English Department of English
Vels University Vels University
Chennai 600117 Chennai 600117 barathikalpana@gmail.com drsureshponnurangam@gmail.com
Abstract
Flashback, as a tool, has been animated by miscellaneous authors from the days of yore to enumerate their stories efficaciously. Writers employ diverse modus of operandi to conjugate the chain of events together to magnetise the readers. Such strains are applicated by authors as an innovation in their narrative fashion. Tony Morrison is one among them to master the craft and exceeded the horizon by adding more flavour to the narrative technique in
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Morrison’s novels are dominated by flashback effects. She has manipulated the technique to bring out the best of her works. This paper focuses on the narrative technique used by the author in her novels and to critically analyse her craftsmanship.
Key Words: Narrative, Technique, Flashbacks, modus of operandi, craftmanship, domination etc…
Introduction
Toni Morrison is one of the specialists in story telling through which she has silenced many contemporary writers as well as readers. Her novels are revolutionary and most of her novels focused on black community. Her technique of swirling her narration back and forth gives more life to her novels. Her novel Beloved swims like a garden pond full of flashbacks and memories of the days of the past. Each memory is like a drop of wine, and when one person brings up enough
In Eden Robinson’s novel, Monkey Beach, there is a contrast between the present tense narrative and flashback technique Robinson incorporates. The novel consists of the narrator, Lisamarie Hill, telling her story in the present time; intertwined with these sequences of events is a series of flashbacks from her past to educate the reader about Lisa’s life up until the present. Throughout Monkey Beach, flashbacks and present tense narration depict time and place through the characters Lisamarie, Erica, and Josh, who experience sexual violence, due to colonizers, and residential schools. To begin with, the flashback technique and present tense narration portray time and place from the impact colonizers have on Lisamarie and Erica. Sexual violence occurs to Lisamarie’s cousin, Erica, who is being followed by a few young white men, in a car, hurling racist insults, until Lisamarie intervenes.
African-American author Toni Morrison 's book, Beloved, describes a black culture born out of a dehumanising period of slavery just after the Civil War. Culture is a means of how a group collectively believe, act, and interact on a daily basis. Those who have studied her work refer to Morrison 's narrative tales as “literature…that addresses the sacred and as an allegorical representation of black experience” (Baker-Fletcher 1993: 2). Although African Americans had a difficult time establishing their own culture during the period of slavery when they were considered less than human, Morrison believes that black culture has been built on the horrors of the past and it is this history that has shaped contemporary black culture in a positive way. Through the use of linguistic devices, her representation of black women, imagery and symbolic features, and the theme of interracial relations, Morrison illustrates that black culture that is resilient, vibrant, independent, and determined.
1. Beloved, the novel by African-American writer Toni Morrison is a collection of memories of the characters presented in the novel. Most characters in the novel are living with repressed painful memories and hence they are not able to move ahead in their lives and are somewhere stuck. The novel, in a way, becomes a guide for people with painful memories because it is in a way providing solutions to get rid of those memories and move ahead in life. The novel is divided into three parts; each part becomes a step in the healing ritual of painful repressed memories.
In Beloved by Toni Morrison, the author often utilizes many different writing techniques to emphasize the story’s main idea that one cannot let past mistakes dictate one’s life and future. Morrison’s application of nonlinear exposition in Beloved helps convey the novel’s main theme by allowing the reader to witness Sethe’s journey to self-acceptance through her personal flashbacks and Paul D.’s point of view. From the beginning, the author incorporates a flashback to illustrate how Sethe is burdened with guilt from killing her baby daughter. Morrison makes it clear to the reader that Beloved is constantly on Sethe’s mind.
In Eugenia Collier's short story “Marigolds”, the author uses flashback and juxtaposition to create the narrator's voice and present a particular point of view. The narrator uses flashback to show her memories and feelings. The narrator shows in paragraph 1, when she states “ memory is an abstract painting-it does not present things as they are, but rather as they feel.” The use of flashback is to show how her childhood.
Toni Morrison presents her novel Beloved, chronicling a woman 's struggle in a post-slavery America. The novel contains several literary devices in order to properly convey its meaning and themes. Throughout the novel, symbolism is used heavily to imply certain themes and motifs. In Morrison 's Beloved, the symbol of milk is utilized in the novel in order to represent motherhood, shame, and nurturing, revealing the deprivation of identity and the dehumanization of slaves that slavery caused.
It is quite unlikely for one to contemplate murder, but even more unlikely for it to be the murder of one’s own child. While the event of murder is more common than expected, revenge may be the source of anger buildup that leads to the horrendous acts. What may seem yet even stranger to some is if the victim resurrects and seeks a greater revenge. If a wrong is done to someone, should they be allowed to get revenge to whatever lengths they see fit? That question is the heart of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved.
Creative non-fiction has ever-growing popularity with a style that recounts a historical event through narrative. It captivates readers with a purpose to entertain the audience through prose as opposed to other forms of non-fiction. Sometimes creative non-fiction pieces enlighten readers about topics that they would otherwise avoid such as seen in numerous written works about slavery. Slavery is a controversial topic as it is associated with a darker part of American memory. However, some authors during their time wanted their audience to bear witness to the atrocity with tales based on true stories.
This article will bolster my argument by providing these numerous examples and allowing me to explore and present the thoughts of another writer exploring a very similar topic. Ultimately, in my paper, this source will serve as a jumping-off point for many of my arguments. In doing this, I hope to employ it early and often to give my paper frame, direction, and purpose. Toscano, Margaret M. "Homer Meets the Coen Brothers: Memory as Artistic Pastiche in O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
Slaves faced extreme brutality and Morrison focuses on rape and sexual assault as the most terrifying form of abuse. It is because of this abuse that Morrison’s characters are trapped in their pasts, unable to move on from the psychological damages that they have endured. “Morrison revises the conventional slave narrative by insisting on the primacy of sexual assault over other experiences of brutality” (Barnett 420). For telling Mrs. Garner what they had done, she was badly beaten by them, leaving a “chokecherry tree” (16) on her back. But that was not the overriding issue.
Names have always held power in literature; whether it is the defeated giant Polyphemus cursing Odysseus due to him pridefully announcing his name or how the true name of the Hebrew god was considered so potent that the word was forbidden. In fact, names were given power in tales dating all the way back to the 24th century B.C.E. when the goddess Isis became as strong as the sun god Ra after tricking him into revealing his true name. And in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, names have a much stronger cultural significance; and in the case of the character known as “Beloved”, her name is essentially her whole existence. Morrison shows the true power a name holds in African American literature through the character known as “Beloved”, as her role in the story becomes defined by the name she is given and changes in the final moments of the chapter.
The authors want their audiences to use these tales and examples as life lessons and hope for them to utilize these sources in their future lives. These two ideas are presented through the use of figurative language, mainly metaphors. In addition, the similar tone of these pieces allows the author to connect more deeply with the readers. Toni Morrison’s Nobel lecture, folktales, and several poems illustrate how metaphors and tone are used to describe experience and caution the readers.
In order to do so, I will use quotations extracted from Morrison´s work and other secondary resources, and I will focus on the main characters of the novel that stand as representations of their social dimension. Toni Morrison uses the personal lives of the
Analysis of Toni Morrison's Beloved The book Beloved by Toni Morrison is a very interesting but peculiar book. The book flashes back from the present, past, and future, so often, you really have to pay attention or you will get lost. The book overviews slave's life, but goes into detail about one slave, Sethe. Toni Morrison, of Beloved creates a magic-realistic story based on the life of Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery just like the main character. Between Sethe and Beloved, there is always a dramatic situation occurring.
The characters in Beloved, especially Sethe and Paul D are both dehumanized during the slavery experiences by the inhumanity of the white people, their responses to the experience differ due to their different role. Sethe were trapped in the past because the ghost of the dead baby in the house was the representation of Sethe’s past life that she couldnot forget. She accepted the ghost as she accepted the past. But Sethe began to see the future after she confronted her through the appearance of her dead baby as a woman who came to her house. For Sethe, the future existed only after she could explain why she killed her own daughter.