LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 21:9 September 2021
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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The “Tilted Man’s” Quest for Home:
Mourning and Melancholia in Toni Morrison’s Home

Noor Abu Madi and Dr. Raja Khaleel Al-Khalili

Abstract

The paper focuses on the portrayal of the racial problem and its effects on the African American individual as depicted in Toni Morrison’s novel, Home (2012). The novel is similar to other works written by Morrison in that the events of the story are set in specific historical periods to portray the dangers of racism on the African American individual irrespective of gender and the threat it poses to the African American community and the American nation as a whole. The personal narrative of Frank's past and his journey can be understood within Hayden White's concept of "emplotment.” Also, the researchers rely on Sigmund Freud’s notes on “Mourning and Melancholia” as a useful theoretical context that aids in explaining Frank’s psychological status which is a result of racism, homelessness, and estrangement. Morrison goes into the causes of how an individual becomes melancholic, ambivalent, and detached from himself/herself and the community. Finally, the implications of the novel's racial tensions in American society at large can be understood within Bhabha's postcolonial theory.

Keywords: Morrison; Home; African American literature; Melancholia; Mourning; New Historicism; Racism.

I. Introduction

“For larger and larger numbers of black people, this sense of loss has grown, and deeper the conviction that something valuable is slipping away from us, the more necessary it has become to find some way to hold on to the useful past without blocking off the possibilities of the future” (Morrison, Rediscovering Black History, 42).

The meaning and associations of "home" for individuals have been major themes for many writers in contemporary fiction. In many narratives, the home is typically associated with a feeling of belonging for the characters, and also encompasses a larger discussion on the idea of the national identity. As Bhabha puts it, “the people are the historical ‘objects’ of a nationalist pedagogy, giving the discourse an authority that is based on the pre-given or constituted historical origin in the past” (1994, p.145). Thus, the novel's title and themes have postcolonial significance (Soleimani & Zarrinjooee, 2014, 498). Yet, the novel invites various readings because "home" entails individual feelings, a shared past, and an outlook on the future to foster a sentiment of belonging to a community and a nation.

The theme of ‘home’ has been of particular interest to African American female writers such as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Zora Neal Hurston. The writers have used the historical background of the African American community who were deprived of a sense of home because they have been uprooted from their homeland to be slaves as a background to their literary work. The novels of these prominent African American writers often feature women as protagonists and occasionally men as major characters who face problems that can be traced by going back to their ancestors' history as they were detached from their native lands and found themselves obliged to find new ways to heal and rediscover their home again. In almost all her novels and critical works, the Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison declared that the obstacle that prevented the African Americans from belonging to their new world was deep-rooted racism which was a consequence of historical events: "in this country, it is quite the reverse. American means white, and Africanist people struggle to make the term applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after hyphen” (Morrison, 2008, p. 47). Therefore, critics have discussed her novels considering the history of the community in which her characters are shaped by its turbulent relationship with the larger American society and accordingly, her novels are to be considered as "funk” and as " the intrusion of the past on the present" (Willis, 2017, p. 690).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Noor Abu Madi
Master in English Literature and Criticism
Full-time Lecturer, Language Center
The Hashemite University, Zarqa-Jordan
ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0970-5915

Dr. Raja Khaleel Al-Khalili
Associate Professor, English Department
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2400-6189
The Hashemite University, Zarqa - Jordan
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