Mae G. Henderson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780195116595
- eISBN:
- 9780199375219
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195116595.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature, Women's Literature
Writing against the limitations of conventional historiography and nineteenth-century slave narratives, Toni Morrison, in her novel Beloved, addresses the unspoken and unspeakable: the sexual ...
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Writing against the limitations of conventional historiography and nineteenth-century slave narratives, Toni Morrison, in her novel Beloved, addresses the unspoken and unspeakable: the sexual exploitation of black women. The author journeys to a “site of memory,” and through memory and imagination, she reconstructs from the “traces” and “remains” left behind “the unwritten interior life” of her characters. Like the author, her character Sethe must learn to speak the unspeakable in order to transform residual memories (“rememories”) of the past into narrative memory. In order to reclaim herself, Sethe must reconfigure the master’s narrative (and its inscriptions of physical, social, and scholarly dismemberment) into a counter-narrative by way of an act of reconstitutive “re-memory.” Through the fundamentally psychoanalytic process of “remembering, repeating, and working through,” Sethe reconfigures a story of infanticide into a story of motherlove. Private memory becomes the basis for a reconstructed public history, as personal past becomes historical present.Less
Writing against the limitations of conventional historiography and nineteenth-century slave narratives, Toni Morrison, in her novel Beloved, addresses the unspoken and unspeakable: the sexual exploitation of black women. The author journeys to a “site of memory,” and through memory and imagination, she reconstructs from the “traces” and “remains” left behind “the unwritten interior life” of her characters. Like the author, her character Sethe must learn to speak the unspeakable in order to transform residual memories (“rememories”) of the past into narrative memory. In order to reclaim herself, Sethe must reconfigure the master’s narrative (and its inscriptions of physical, social, and scholarly dismemberment) into a counter-narrative by way of an act of reconstitutive “re-memory.” Through the fundamentally psychoanalytic process of “remembering, repeating, and working through,” Sethe reconfigures a story of infanticide into a story of motherlove. Private memory becomes the basis for a reconstructed public history, as personal past becomes historical present.
Roger Frie
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199372553
- eISBN:
- 9780190674786
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199372553.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
Written by the son of Germans who were children during the war, with grandparents who were participants in the war, this book uses the history of the author’s family as a guide to consider the ...
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Written by the son of Germans who were children during the war, with grandparents who were participants in the war, this book uses the history of the author’s family as a guide to consider the psychological and moral implications of memory. From his perspective of a life lived across German and Jewish contexts, the author seeks to understand the discoveries he makes. Drawing on family narrative, the author shows how German families try to keep the Holocaust at bay, finding that some memories of the past are shared, while others remain shrouded in silence. This silence about the role of family members in the Nazi past leaves unspoken traces that are transferred from one generation to the next. As this book suggests, meaningful remembering must include a willingness to confront difficult, often painful questions for which there are no easy answers. This autobiographical study is rich with illustration. It combines the author’s own story with the stories of others, perpetrators and survivors of the Holocaust, and the generations that came after. The author, a practicing psychotherapist, also draws on the experience of working with patients whose lives have been directly and indirectly shaped by the Holocaust. Throughout, the author proceeds with a level of frankness and honesty that invites readers to reflect on their own histories and to understand the lasting effects of historical traumas into the present.Less
Written by the son of Germans who were children during the war, with grandparents who were participants in the war, this book uses the history of the author’s family as a guide to consider the psychological and moral implications of memory. From his perspective of a life lived across German and Jewish contexts, the author seeks to understand the discoveries he makes. Drawing on family narrative, the author shows how German families try to keep the Holocaust at bay, finding that some memories of the past are shared, while others remain shrouded in silence. This silence about the role of family members in the Nazi past leaves unspoken traces that are transferred from one generation to the next. As this book suggests, meaningful remembering must include a willingness to confront difficult, often painful questions for which there are no easy answers. This autobiographical study is rich with illustration. It combines the author’s own story with the stories of others, perpetrators and survivors of the Holocaust, and the generations that came after. The author, a practicing psychotherapist, also draws on the experience of working with patients whose lives have been directly and indirectly shaped by the Holocaust. Throughout, the author proceeds with a level of frankness and honesty that invites readers to reflect on their own histories and to understand the lasting effects of historical traumas into the present.
Luca Crispi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198718857
- eISBN:
- 9780191788307
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718857.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter unwinds Molly Bloom’s rambling thoughts about her childhood and adolescence in Gibraltar, as well as the complex networks of Leopold and Molly’s private and sometimes shared memories of ...
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This chapter unwinds Molly Bloom’s rambling thoughts about her childhood and adolescence in Gibraltar, as well as the complex networks of Leopold and Molly’s private and sometimes shared memories of her early life. By the start of 1918 Joyce had established most of the information there is about her father, but only four years later made concerted rounds of additions so that the stories about him might resonate more substantially. Surprisingly, he wrote all of the few references to Molly’s mother at the last possible moment before Ulysses was published. As well as adding layers of descriptive details in ‘Penelope’ about Gibraltar, Joyce also intensified the explicitly physical aspects of Molly’s awakening sexuality. Typical of her contradictory attitudes, Molly’s uncertainty about her first lover emphasizes the seeming commensurability of her attitude towards the men in her life in contrast to her relatively clear memories of Leopold’s first kiss on Howth.Less
This chapter unwinds Molly Bloom’s rambling thoughts about her childhood and adolescence in Gibraltar, as well as the complex networks of Leopold and Molly’s private and sometimes shared memories of her early life. By the start of 1918 Joyce had established most of the information there is about her father, but only four years later made concerted rounds of additions so that the stories about him might resonate more substantially. Surprisingly, he wrote all of the few references to Molly’s mother at the last possible moment before Ulysses was published. As well as adding layers of descriptive details in ‘Penelope’ about Gibraltar, Joyce also intensified the explicitly physical aspects of Molly’s awakening sexuality. Typical of her contradictory attitudes, Molly’s uncertainty about her first lover emphasizes the seeming commensurability of her attitude towards the men in her life in contrast to her relatively clear memories of Leopold’s first kiss on Howth.
