The Consequences of Trauma in Toni Morrison’s Beloved : A Psychoanalytic Reading of Sethe and Denver

Abstract: This essay’s main focus is on Sethe and her daughter Denver in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and how they try to survive the trauma that comes from slavery. By using psychoanalysis as a theoretical framework, the essay examines what psychological reactions Sethe and Denver have as two traumatised characters, and what happens to them psychologically when they are forced to face the repressed. Through the encounter with Sethe’s dead daughter, Beloved, Sethe and Denver face the repressed within them. They use defence mechanisms and core issues as a reaction and a means of coping with trauma. By analyzing the characters through concepts of defence mechanisms and core issues (which were coined by Sigmund Freud), a deeper understanding of the characters' experiences when facing their trauma can be acquired. By creating the repressed into a ghost of flesh and blood, the abstraction of repression is transformed into something concrete which creates visibility for what normally operates within the psyche. Moreover, the narrative also benefits from Morrison’s choice of making the abstract more concrete as the enslaved characters’ experiences are in focus in a solid and comprehensible way. The combination of magic and realism in Beloved also contributes to the discourse about slavery since both its history and its psychological effects are in focus in the novel