Available online at http://jgu.garmian.edu.krd
Journal of University of Garmian https://doi.org/10.24271/garmian.196350
Trauma in Toni Morrison’s Novel God Help the Child
Roz Salahuddin Ahmed1, Sherzad Shafi’ Babo2 Department of English, College of Languages, Sallahaddin University
Article Info Abstract
Received: July, 2019 Trauma can be experienced in life due to many adverse situations that Revised:August,2019 encounter the modern man. Due to the prevalence of trauma in the lives of Accepted:August,2019 individuals and communities, Trauma as a theory and discipline was s conceptualized in the 1990s. Traumatic incidents can be recognized in Toni Keywords Morrison‘s novel God Help the Child which include many types of traumas
Trauma, trauma theory, racial such as racial trauma including colorism and parental trauma. Characters in the trauma, colorism, parental novel are affected by traumas that cause unfavorable consequences. The trauma. protagonist Lula Ann, despite going through the harmful effects of trauma, she creates a new identity which is devoid of racist views. This paper aims to Corresponding Author present the traumatic situations experienced especially by the protagonist in the [email protected] novel, its implications and the transformation that the protagonist reaches.
Introduction
Many psychological associations and theorists event must involve intense fear, helplessness, or define trauma as serious harm that affects human horror (or in children, the response must involve beings negatively and leaves its toll on their disorganized or agitated behavior (p.463). bodies and psyches. The American Psychiatric Trauma emerged to be studied as a Association[APA] (2000) defines trauma as: psychological disorder only in the later twentieth direct personal experience of an event that century, though its early signs and formation involves actual or threatened death or serious was recognized in the 1800s. Leys (2010) states injury, or other threat to one‘s physical integrity; that the earliest discussion of trauma as an or witnessing an event that involves death, isolated disorder began in the 1860s through the injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of works of John Erichsen(1866) who studied the another person; or learning about unexpected or consequences of fear on people who in railway violent death, serious harm, or threat of death or accidents. injury experienced by a family member or other The field of dynamic psychiatry was first close associate. The person‘s response to the investigated by Janet (1892) and then Freud and
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Breuer (1093-1895) who published studies about then of survival which is elucidated by the the dynamics of hysteria. Janet is accountable intersection that happens between the language for the positive characterization of hysteria. of literature and psychoanalytic theory. Caruth Later Freud in 1893 developed his posttraumatic continues to reinterpret Freud‘s writing on model to cover all hysterical symptoms. Both trauma. She illustrates that the language of Freud and Janet acknowledged the contribution trauma is literary because it challenges our of biological and social elements in the understanding. Caruth presents Freud‘s theory of formation of hysterical symptoms but only Janet latency which refers to the reoccurring of (1892) emphasized each of the biological, traumatic experience, a reliving of the traumatic psychological and social factors that affects each experience because during latency traumatic person. Freud‘s Psychological models remained symptoms are not apparent and this causes the illness related. By contrast, Janet developed a repetition of the traumatic experience. These health focused model based on growth and notions about trauma are the basis of the maintenance of the self. This was founded on the emergence of trauma as a theory and a literary analysis of personality based on memory and discipline which makes authors like Toni other percepts. Morrison portray traumatic aspects in their Herman (1992) clarified that Freud first claimed novels. Toni Morrisons‘s novel God Help the that hysteria affects women due to sexual abuse Child is presented with reference to her fiction when he conducted his hypnotic studies and it is and the traumatic events that encounter her the main cause of trauma but later he abandoned protagonist in the novel. this conviction in fear of the clash between him and the patriarchal society which was and still is 1. Toni Morrison’s Fiction and Racial in control. Freud (1952) constituted his theories Trauma that are related to the unconscious mind and the unconscious fantasies to explain psychological Toni Morrison is known for a unique style of phenomena. In the wake of the two World wars writing, that is why her writing style is and the Holocaust in addition to the emergence investigated by many scholars to reveal her of feminism in the 1970s due to increased special interests and areas of focus in writing. maltreatment of women and domestic violence, Yoshinobu (2001) states that Toni Morrison‘s the field of trauma studies started to emerge aim is to make a literature that is both beautiful reaching its full formation and recognition and political also at the same time. Morrison‘s starting from the year 1990. writing is centered around the dilemma‘s Kolk (2014) reveals reports that 12 million between narrative based on history and narrative women were victimized by rape in the United based on myth particularly Black history and States in 2014 alone. He further clarifies that Black myth. Morrison investigates Western fifty percent of those women were under the age myths related to religion, politics and legal of fifteen at the time of assault. He expounds a discourse with some shades of magical realism survey that reveals that every year there are which addresses the imperialistic and male- three million cases of child abuse. Kolk clarifies centered discourse. that children affected by trauma will probably be Morrison presents the difficult traumatic past affected by its negative consequences even in of African Americans but she insists that the adulthood. Kolk demonstrates that traumatic traumatic past presented is necessary through memories are vivid, unchanging and easily representing the complexity of traumatic past. In triggered which creates difficulties for the an interview for The Paris Review magazine, traumatized in order to continue functioning in Elissa Schappell (1992) asks Morrison about life Cathy Caruth (1996) offers an extensive how the black writers are recognized in a world study of trauma narratives by analyzing them which is dominated by white standards. according to trauma theory and psychoanalysis. Morrison states that she plays with the language Caruth further poses the question of whether written by opening it up. She says that she wrote trauma is a form of death or survival. She a story entitled Recitatif in which there are two concludes that trauma is a form of death and little girls who are orphans, one white and one
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black. But she does not inform the reader who is African Americans adopt. The notion of black and who is white. She asserts that she ―Double Consciousness‖ founded by DuBois prefers to use class codes instead of racial codes. (1903) in ―The Souls of Black Folk‖ is Duvall(2000) asserts that Morrison employs considered a symptom of racial trauma which is DuBois theory of Double Consciousness which also used by George Yancy (2008) who states he believes affects African Americans. that the white gaze is often is apprehended by Schappell (1992) states that Morrison is known exposing the eurocentric cultural perspective for her mastery of public novel investigating the which is regarded a narrow perspective based relationships between the races and sexes and on the European perspective which the push and pull between civilization and marginalizes the African American identity and nature. Additionally, Morrison focuses on omits the African American authorial space. The combining myth and the fantastic with a deep eurocentric white gaze leads to the political allegiance to her community and its objectification of African Americans instead of crisis. considering them as independent subjects. This Morrison‘s own childhood experiences allowed gaze forces African Americans to view her to be an advocate for protecting children. In themselves out of themselves devoid of a sense an interview with Terry Gross for Fresh Air of identity according to the perspective of the radio station (2015), she narrates the story of white world. Stayton (2017) states that these how her father protected her from a white man notions and struggles of the African American by throwing him down stairs thinking he was identity can be recognized clearly in Toni after his daughters and how she felt safe and Morrison‘s novel God Help the Child. Morrison protected: unveils the traumatic struggles of African I think his[Morrison‘s father] own experience in Americans with historical and narratological Georgia would have made him think that any context Stamm (1996) states that the cultural or white man bumbling up the stairs toward our racial trauma is considered to be more than apartment was not there for any good. And since physical harm of people, property and landscape we were little girls, he assumed that. I think he such as what is seen in warfare. This type of made a mistake. I mean, I really think the man trauma is directly or indirectly is an attack to lots was drunk. I don‘t think he was really trailing of foundations that constitutes human dignity us. But the interesting thing was- he survived. B, and societal/ethnic identity such as body/ space the real thing for me was I thought- I felt practices, history, language, religion and state profoundly protected and defended […]. So I and economics. Equiano (1814 ) narrates the didn‘t think of it as, oh, look, my father‘s a facts during the journey across the Atlantic violent man. He never, you know, spanked us. ocean which states that those Africans who He never quarreled with us. He never argued survived the passage to America often with us. He was dedicated, and he was sweet. So considered themselves as motherless children he did this thing to protect his children. being traumatized Africans who were confined Morrison in an interview with Carol Off (2015) with shackles and cuffs and they were bought for As It Happens Canadian show says ― In this and sold away. They were taken away from their book, I [Morrison] was very interested in communities and devalued. This traumatizing of childhood trauma paralyzing us in the the children of Africa would leave a deep contemporary world‖. However, Morrison also wounding that lasts for generations. Collins shows the possibilities of healing from horrors (1991) states that black mothers, under the slave of the past. She presents how her characters are system, experienced excruciating painful time. enabled to face their pain and suffering and The suffering they have gone through, made reclaim their lives. Ramirez (2017) states that in them not to raise up their children as usual but God Help the child is a tale that is exposing instead it let them accomplish infanticide. Black childhood abuse and trauma but it is also a tale mothers and daughters face an unusual of healing and hope. circumstance due to slavery and its aftermath Toni Morrison in her novel God Help the Child ―Black daughters raised by mothers are (2015) addresses the double standards that affected by the hostile environment and have to
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be in constant wavering between their feelings and impairs the prevailing sense of community‖ about the difference between the idealized (p.153). versions of maternal love extant in popular New Historicism is a key theoretical culture and the strict and often troubled mothers perspective coined in the 1970s which is in their lives. Sweetness suffers from the pluralistic in its application and questions the emotional burden of her husband‘s withdrawal assumed notion that history and historical from raising his daughter after her birth. narratives are all objective . Prior to New Adrienne Rich (1976) in her analysis of the Historicism, Historical theory was prevalent that dilemma of the mother who brings up her assumed that historical record and narratives are children without support from their father, objective in nature. This contradiction in beliefs argues as follows: about history paves the ways for new The black mother has been charged by both possibilities and interpretations proposed by white and black males with the ―castration‖ of authors (Stayton, 2017). her sons through her so-called matriarchal D.G. Myers (1989) clarifies the major premises domination of the family, as breadwinner, of New Historicism as a theory: decision-maker, and rearer of children in one. The proper way to understand it [New Needless to say, her ―power‖ as ―matriarch‖ is Historicism], therefore, is through the culture drastically limited by the bonds of racism, and society that produced it. (2) Literature, then, sexism, and poverty. What is misread as power is not a distinct category of human activity. It here is really survival-strength, guts, the must be assimilated to history, which means a determination that her children‗s lives shall particular vision of history. (3) Like works of come to something even if it means driving literature, man himself is a social construct, the them, or sacrificing her own pride in order to sloppy composition of social and political feed and clothe them (p. 204). forces- there is no such thing as a human nature Morrison clearly shows the effects of race that transcends history. Renaissance man based trauma which hits the core of the African belongs inescapably and irretrievably to the American identity. The effects of communal or Renaissance. There is no continuity between him racial trauma disables the formation of black and us; history is a series ‗ruptures‘ between identity. Identity formation is constituted ages and men. As a consequence, the through creating a unity between the self and historian/critic is trapped in his own ‗historicity‘ the community because the self is constructed (p.3-4). within the community. This is shown in W.E. B Toni Morrison as a literary scholar uses the DuBois‘s text (1903) when he explains the New Historicism theory to for creating new internal conflict the African American individual histories of the marginalized people of her race feels, he says: ―It is peculiar sensation, this that shapes and reshapes the human experience double consciousness, this sense of always and by historically placing voiceless people at looking at one‘s self through the eyes of others, the center of her narratives. She allows for open- of measuring one‘s soul by the tape of a world ended interpretations of her literature. Morrison that looks on in amused contempt and pity‖ believes that literary works are the product of (p.45). time but also at the same time literary works Kai Erickson(1995) in her acclaimed work create ideologies. In reshaping history, Morrison Everything in Its Path makes a distinction attempts to urge African Americans to move between individual trauma and communal beyond their past traumatic experiences. trauma clear. She states: ―By individual trauma, Morrison is interested in rememory which I mean a blow to the psyche that breaks through means the ability to tell and retell history from a one‘s defenses so suddenly and with such brutal human perspective. Goulimari (2011) states that force that one cannot react to it effectively… By Morrison might be considered subjective in her collective trauma, on the other hand, I mean a writings. However, Morrison does not intend to blow to the basic tissue of social life that offer an objective view of the past through her damages the bonds attaching people together writings, instead she favors a subjective view that match the literary school of New
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Historicism which favors the effective portrayal Massey and Denton (1993) state that of histories instead of the objective portrayal. Morrison‘s God Help the Child (2015) narrates the realities of contemporary America (from the 2. Femininity and the Social Stigma of 1990s to the first decade of the 21st century) and Ugliness investigates whether the black female condition has improved. Aside from the fact that ―skin In her novel God Help the Child (2014) color remains a powerful basis of stratification Morrison aims to present the black female in the United States‖ ( p.85), Morrison displays experience within a white-dominated society and that gender can stimulate prevalent specifies the ways in which the identity of discrimination when it is afflicted with the sexist African American girls is affected by the images of white supremacy. According to Robyn prevailing cultural standards. As Cynthia Wiegman(1995), Morrison depicts the ways ―the Davis(1999) mentions all of ―Morrison‘s social violences of race and gender‖ (p.1) characters exist in a world defined by its influence the life and psychology of African blackness and by the surrounding white society American females. ―America‘s quite violent and that both violates it and denies it‖ (p.7). The damaging historical exclusions‖ destructive manifestations of racial oppression in (Wiegman,1995: p.9) and social inequality are Morrison‘s fiction underline the turbulence that exposed. Morrison‘s fictional dark-skinned girls African Americans experience. Being aware of and women are dealt with as subhuman, and/or the repeated pattern of discrimination, Morrison are treated as sex objects and male possessions. (2000) claims that ‗[t]he Look of white society Davis (1999) states that considering […] not only freezes the black individual but ―[w]omanhood, like blackness, is Other in this also classifies all blacks as alike‘ (p.10). Her society, and the dilemma of woman in a African American characters, who have patriarchal society is parallel to that of blacks in difficulty identifying themselves as members of a racist one‖ ( p.12), Morrison‘s protagonists are the black community or have adopted white twice victimized by sexist stereotypes because cultural standards, are fragile individuals they are women and racist views because they struggling with self-definition and self-worth. are black skinned. Contextualizing Morrison‘s In God Help the Child (2015), Morrison contribution with regards to the position of the emphasizes the usage of black beauty so that it African American women and the impact of becomes a profitable commodity for the white American culture on the black community, cosmetics business and the fashion industry. it is necessary to examine the literary objectives Fragkouli (2017) states that Lula Ann (the of black women novelists in terms of race and protagonist), Aims to fit in the ideal image of gender. African American female scholars, exotic dark-skinned feminine. Lula Ann gets including Morrison, feel the urgency to break overly excited by the stereotypical portrayal of the silence and make black voices powerfully the luscious, curvy, and sensual black woman of recognized and heard by the general public, the 1990s. Fragkouli (2017) states that Bride especially by white American society. As depends on her outward appearance and on her Morrison explains in her essay, ―Unspeakable dark skin in order to be accepted as a respected Things Unspoken‖ (n.d.) that despite the fact member of the beauty industry. The novel that African American artists have been highlights the pervasive effect of the established acknowledged and serious scholarship ―has western beauty standards on the African moved from silencing the witnesses and erasing American community in general and on black their meaningful place in and contribution to mothers and on vulnerable young black girls American culture‖ (p.31) African American specifically. While growing up in the literature is frequently regarded as inferior, governance of the dominant white culture, ―imitative, excessive, sensational, mimetic black-skinned girls are bruised not only by the (merely), and unintellectual‖ (p.32). There are opinions and conducts of the whites but also by still stereotypical and minimizing the opinions and attitudes of their own mothers. representations of the literature created by African Americans even in contemporary white
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aesthetics that seek to obscure the voice of the Morrison wants to elucidate that the beauty black race, keep its advancements hidden, and industry is adamant on associating black send blacks to the social margins. Despite the femininity with sensational eroticism and on efforts of white racists to keep the system of associating African American women‘s racial segregation active, things began to change sexuality with promiscuity. In the American gradually in American society during the culture, the stereotypes of the past as Collins postwar decades. Missy Dehn Kubitschek(1998) (2004) state are ―are revived by the disseminated emphasizes that ―America‘s social landscape images of the mass media‖ (p. 182); the image changed substantially from 1950 to 1970‖ (p.28) of a dark skinned young woman as a sensual with the emergence of the Black Power black sex object as Wolf (1992) states ―links a movement, the feminist movement, the civil commodified ‗beauty‘ directly and explicitly to rights movement, and the ―Black is Beautiful‖ sexuality,‖ undermining ―women‘s new and campaign. A vital part of the black freedom vulnerable sense of sexual self-worth‖(p.11). struggle of the 1960s were African American The self-image of African American girls is writers and artists who worked to change the greatly impacted by white American beauty ways black Americans were represented in ideals. Besides peer pressure, familial pressure literature and the arts. This movement is known which is also exercised upon them. The society as the Black Arts movement. According to urges women to adopt a certain image of female Elliott Butler-Evans (1989) states the black beauty . In the 1930s, black poor girls were aesthetic was created to ‗represent [b]lack life as flooded by portrayals of ideal beauty symbolized lived by the [b]lack masses, to fashion identities by white female actresses and by the that corresponded with those of ordinary [b]lack standardized image of the popular Shirley people, and to displace Western cultural Temple. By the 1990s beauty emerged as hegemony‘ (p.21). Butler-Evans (1989) states commodity; it composed a profitable product, that regarding Morrison‘s literary works, it has which aided the American economy. The beauty been said that the author uses fiction ―as an industry based its financial profit on fashion instrument of empowerment‖ (p.7). To be more supermodels who not only gained prevalent precise, Kubischek (1998) states that Morrison‘s fame but also became the beauty icons of the novels are inseparable from ―the Black Arts and decade. In God Help the Child, Morrison feminist protests against racist and sexist comments on these two time periods and injustice‖ (p. 30). In fact, Morrison exposes race demonstrates the ways the notion of beauty has and gender as the powerful tools with which influenced the live of some dark-skinned white America suppresses and discriminates African American girls and affected their African American girls and women. transition from girlhood to womanhood. In fact, the depictions of black female bodies in Through the depiction of her fictional female popular culture debases and underestimates character Bride, the author conveys that dark bodies of African American women. The black skin continues to influence the way young black female is viewed continually as an inferior and girls view their femininity and that the dispensable sex object. In her essay, ―Black misconception of ugliness attached to blackness Women: Shaping Feminist Theory,‖ bell continues to make the transition to womanhood hooks(1994) points out that for a long time a traumatic experience. African American women and young girls were Paul Taylor (1999) states that ‗ [A] white ―daily beaten down, mentally, physically, and dominated culture has racialized beauty, [in] that spiritually‖ and some of them still remain it has defined beauty per se in terms of white ―powerless to change their condition in life‖ beauty, in terms of the physical features that the (p.270). Likewise, Frances Beale(1995) people we consider white are more likely to highlights the fact that black women, burdened have‘. Ramirez (2017) states that God Help the by the traumatic experience of self-devaluation, Child novel can be viewed partially as a modern are constantly ―manipulated by the system, day fairy tale which is portraying a economically exploited, and physically reinterpretation of one of the tales of the Danish assaulted‖ (p.146). writer Hans Christian Anderson titled ‗The Ugly
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Duckling‘. This tale carries a powerful message in white which addresses her submissiveness to of the importance of accepting self-image and Western beliefs about beauty and its valuing it. Henderson was rejected and bullied materialistic values. Jensen (2013) states that in because of his gawky and strange physical God Help the Child novel: ― Morrison‘s critical appearance. His didactic tale is tailored to depiction of materialism and consumerism express and call for empathy and acceptance to reveals the crucial role the product the outcasts and those who are unfortunate. manufacturers and advertisers in a consumer Morrison adopts the same technique in her novel society play as creators and enforcers of but she uses the postcolonial discourse dominant beauty standards‖ (p.4). Ramirez portraying African Americans especially African (2017) states that in the fairy tale The Ugly American women marginalized by the white- Duckling by Henderson, Duckling finds his male dominated societies. transformation into a swan his authentic identity Ramirez (2017) states that Toni Morrison fits as he is finally accepted among other animals into Helen Tiffin‘s(1987) definition of the and humans. Bride in God Help the Child is just postcolonial literatures and their colonizing connected to her physical appearance and endeavors as deconstructing, clarifying and material values which are considered superficial unmasking the European domination as well as due to her adherence to imposed ideals of defining a rejected and denied self. Toni beauty. Jeri, the image consultant of Bride is a Morrison explores the destructive traumatic white American who says to Bride ‗ You should effects of Lula Ann‘s construction of beauty. always wear white, Bride. Only white and all Western ideals of beauty are the basis of her white all the time‘ (Morrison 2015, p.33). Jeri traumatized self- identity causing her feeling of added ‗Not only because of your inferiority and self -disgust. Lula Ann‘ s name‘(Morrison 2015,p.33) after that he told her childhood skin as a child are the antithesis of ‗ but because of what it does to your licorice what the white race regards beautiful which skin‘ then he said ― And black is the new black. prevents her from sensing her worth and Know what I mean? Wait. You‘re more developing her ethnic pride and racial love. Hershey‘s syrup than licorice. Makes people Pistelli (2015) states that Lula Ann even falsely think of whipped cream and chocolate soufflé accuses her teacher Sofia Huxley of molesting a every time they see you‖ (P.33). What Jeri said child ‗to get the attention of her mother, whose made Bride laugh, she said ‗ Or Oreos?‘ ( abuse takes the form of a far more insidious Morrison 2015, p.33). Morrison emphasizes lovelessness.‘ Harris (1991) states that how Bride is commodified and sold as another Colonized members of minority groups and beauty product. Bride whose ―self-love is victims of racism and bigotry are likely to turn consistent with her cosmetic company milieu‖ themselves to victimizers embracing the central (Morrison 2015, p.133). cultural paradigms which causes ‗the breakdown But Bride does not mind to leave her cosmetic of the bonds of human caring in the novel profession behind. She leaves for an identity [which] reflects the general absence of ethics journey to rural California to find her boyfriend and morality‘ (p.38). Black Females absorbed to face him and question his rejection and abrupt the racial message the light skinned females are departure. superior to dark skinned females, which became ‗Which was the same as confronting herself, a widely known phenomenon called shadeism or standing up for herself‖ (Morrison 2015, p.98). colorism. This phenomenon affected the Later Bride starts losing all the things that African American females negatively which enslaved her to materialistic life like her car, her made their own beauty and identity mobile phone, her clothes and so on. As Serpel unacknowledged. Song (2012) states that one of (2015) writes that Bride undergoes a the universal themes of ―The Ugly Duckling‖ metaphorical death and loses her material and fairy tale as in other fairy tales is Transformation emotional comforts. Hence, her trip to California particularly the internal transformation which symbolizes her adherence to what is necessary brings about the transformation of the outside and vital in her life. After her accident in the world. Ramirez (2017) states that Bride dresses forest and in the middle of the scary night, Bride
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senses ‗ World-hurt- an awareness of malign God Help the Child, in its similarity with the forces changing her from a courageous Ugly Duckling fairy tale, includes a adventurer into a fugitive‘ (Morrison 2015, conventional fairy-tale theme, unhappy p.83). childhood and abuse. From the very beginning, Ramirez (2017) states that when Booker knows the gray duckling is rejected by everyone around that Bride visited a child molester and brings her him because he is distinct, too ‗ugly‘ which presents, he rebuffs her and tells her that she is equals an abuse experience. As Margaret F. not the woman he wants. Booker‘s spiteful Brinig and F. H. Buckley (1999) claim: words invigorates Bride and she sinks into an The story of the Ugly Duckling […] masks the identity crisis, feeling ―Dismissed‖ and ―Erased‖ tragedy of children who suffer abuse […]. More (Morrison 2015, p.38), which Morrison troubling is the evidence that ‗different‘ children represents by the presenting elements of magical are more likely to be subjected to repeated abuse realism. Bride ‗experiences‘ a physical reversal by parents or guardians […] [Duckling]is ―back into a scared little black girl‖ (Morrison rejected by his mother, rebuffed by his brothers 2015, p.142), ‗losing‘ her femininity. Her and sisters, picked on by the other ducks in the transformation is portrayed through going barnyard, and scorned by other animals (p. 41). through supernatural circumstances: the The experience of Lula Ann and her mother‘s ill disappearance of her pubic and underarm hair, treatment of her due to her color and the her ear piercings and her breasts. Her period perceived racist codes that affect Lula Ann‘s life stops and she even shrinks to the size of a child. is similar to the experience of the Ugly And yet Scholes (2015) states that : ―No one else Duckling. Jonathan Sturgeon (2015) argues that appears to notice these changes. Whether they when Bride‘s pubic hair disappears and her are real or simply the product of Bride‘s own period stops, she is affected psychologically by imagination, it‘s impossible to tell; but the racial rejection. He states that two events are less symbolism is clear: she is unable to escape her surrealist indications than indications of past and she can‘t escape her body‖. Morrison psychosomatic aggression affecting the body narrates: due to racial rejection. After weeks of bird-washing Bride sank into the Ramirez (2017) states that Bride in her water with gratitude, prolonging the soaping epiphany away from her glamorous life realizes until the water had cooled completely. It was the destructive side of materialism and how when she stood to dry herself that she materialism cannot replace her traumatic discovered that her chest was flat. Completely childhood. In The Ugly Duckling tale, Cat and flat, with only the nipples to prove it was not her Hen tell Duckling what to do to fit in. Duckling back. Her shock was so great she plopped back decides to go away and he survives a cold winter down into the dirty water, holding the towel over alone and is finally rescued by a peasant. her chest like a shield (p.92). Ramirez (2017) states that Bride finds her self- The deconstruction of her femininity parallels fulfillment through the forest which represents Bride‘s journey of self-discovery, which leads to her inner self. When the little emerald eyed girl the eventual construction of her true Rain, finds Bride at the time of her car accident womanhood through love and pregnancy. In Bride likens her to Lewis Carol‘s constantly God Help the Child novel, Bride‘s materialism grinning cat. Rain watches how Steve rescues is contrasted with the hippy couples‘ idealism. Bride in total awe with her mouth open. She also The couple Evelyn and Steve receive Bride after appears and disappears as if she is in a the car accident warmly and she realizes that all fantastical world. The Cheshire Cat is the only the people whom she thought loved her had character that understands Alice(Bride). Rain scorned her and rejected her. Bride‘s concocted confesses to the blue-black woman about her ―hollywoody, teenager‖ name is in sharp traumatic childhood at the hands of her mother. opposite to the simplicity and hippy life of Her story demonstrates that the world is reigned Evelyn and Steve. Bride wonders ― Did she by nonsense as in what happens in Alice in know anyway about good for its own sake, or Wonderland story which is the same with what love without things?‖ (Morrison 2015: p.92). trauma causes in the lives of the people affected.
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While the curious Alice attempts to find what a It didn‘t take more than an hour after they fulfilling life looks like. Morrison attempts to pulled her out from between my legs to realize devaluate the myth of beauty, emphasizing the something was wrong. Really wrong. She was fact that being beautiful is not enough, and that so black she scared me. Midnight black, sticking to materialist values is unhealthy and Sudanese black. I‘m light-skinned, with good self-destructive. hooks (1992) states that: ‗It is hair, what we call high yellow, and so is Lula only as we collectively change the way we look Ann‘s father. Ain‘t nobody in my family at ourselves and the world that we can change anywhere near that color. Tar is the closest I can how we are seen. In this process, we seek to think of yet her hair don‘t go with the skin. It‘s create a world where everyone can look at different—straight but curly like those naked blackness, and black people, with new eyes‘ ( tribes in Australia. You might think she‘s a p.6). Morrison wants to shed light on the post- throwback, but throwback to what? You black or new-black term which leads also to should‘ve seen my grandmother; she passed for term post racial blackness, all referring to the white and never said another word to any one of efforts to neutralize the expression ―negro‖ to her children (Morrison 2015, p.3). ―black‖ to gain pride and self- regard. According Harris (2001) states that By maintaining the to Taylor (2016), to be post black is to be white beauty standards, black maternal figures affected by the fluidity of black identity by leave themselves and their female children wrestling with how to orient oneself according exposed to the institutionalized ―white power‖ to the norms of a wider society. and seem to have little resistance against the stereotypical representation of ―black female 3. Morrison’s Black Maternal Figures and bodies in American popular imagination‖ (p.2). their Adoption of Beauty Standards Devoid of its beauty, blackness becomes a burden especially in the eyes of mulatto It is worth to be noted that not only white racist mothers. As a result, those black mothers who Americans are considered responsible for the teach their black-skinned daughters to embrace traumatized black female psyches, damaged their inferior position in society and see lives, and distorted mindsets, but also those themselves as symbols of ugliness can be held members of the African American society, who accountable for charging their children with have held the sexist ideology and the white feelings of self-hatred. beauty myth. African American female novelists Lula Ann‘s mother lives according to the aspire to accentuate the effects of shadeism imposed ideals of the white racist society. This which maintains its hold on white American black woman lives by the white standards and society and on African American communities, views black skin color as a curse. Sweetness and continues to cause psychological harm. says: The role of the mother is extremely influential Some of you probably think it‘s a bad thing to when it comes to African American girls‘ group ourselves according to skin color—the development of character and their shift from lighter, the better—in social clubs, girlhood years to womanhood. Inevitably, black neighborhoods, churches, sororities, even mothers stand as the most supportive female colored schools. But how else can you avoid figures with whom young black girls can being spit on in a drugstore, shoving elbows at identify. Because mothers represent models of the bus stop, walking in the gutter to let whites womanhood, daughters unconsciously follow have the whole sidewalk, charged a nickel at the their opinions without questioning them. grocer‘s for a paper bag that‘s free to white Therefore, African American mothers can be shoppers? Let alone the name calling (Morrison held accountable when they unconsciously 2015, p.4). support the stereotypical image of the ugly and This is the reason why her daughter feels repulsive black girl, as it has been constructed inferior and is deprived of maternal affection. and imposed by white American culture. When From the very beginning of the novel, Sweetness Bride was born, her mother felt shocked due to is introduced to the readers, who recites her side her very dark bluish skin. Sweetness says: of the story. Lula Ann‘s coming to the world is
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an unfortunate occasion for this mulatto mother. pressuring Lula Ann to call her ‗Sweetness‘ Lula Ann‘s skin is so black it petrifies her. instead of ‗Mother‘ or ‗Mama‘ (p.6), so that she Sweetness rejects her responsibility for Lula would not be linked with her dark skin color in Ann‘s skin color, which she describes as public. Also, she continuously asserts that Lula ―[m]idnight black,‖ ―[s]udanese black‖ (3). In Ann‘s blackness is not her fault. Even if Lula particular, Sweetness, a light-skinned woman Ann decides to change her name several times, ―with good hair‖ (Morrison 2015, p.3) compares Sweetness is convinced that her ―color is a cross herself to her daughter‘s physical appearance she will always carry‖(Morrison 2015, p. 7). and blue-black skin, and concludes that her baby Consequently, Lula Ann tries to win her resembles ―those naked tribes in Australia‖ mother‘s affection and acceptance by holding a because Lula Ann has ―straight but curly hair‖ white American teacher accountable for child (Morrison 2015, p.3). In this way, Sweetness abuse. Lula Ann wants to gain feelings of remotes herself from Lula Ann by specifying all worthiness that she is deprived of and make her the bodily differences that distinguish them from mother proud. Lula Ann gives a false testimony each other. Sweetness adheres to the ideals of to satisfy her mother. Throughout the novel the dominant white culture when she admits that Morrison narrates how Lula Ann explains that skin color is a means of dividing individuals into being touched and caressed by her mother is groups; ―the lighter [the skin color] the better‖ needed and crucial for her wellbeing. (Morrison 2015, p.4). Sweetness expresses her Unfortunately, Sweetness refuses to touch her fears of name-calling, but also believes that daughter and feels frustrated when she has to light-skinned blacks who can pass as whites give her a bath. Being submissive to the avoid ―being spit in a drugstore, shoving elbows ideology of colorism, Sweetness shows no at the bus stop, walking in the gutter to let interest in caring for her daughter. The child‘s whites have the whole sidewalk, charged a dark skin repels this mulatto mother from nickel at the grocer‘s for a paper bag that‘s free embracing or kissing her child. Although to white shoppers‖ (Morrison 2015, p.4). Morrison places Lula Ann‘s birth in the 1990s, Sweetness confesses that Lula Ann embarrasses she aims to imply that the imposed dominant her. The destructiveness of white American beauty standards still influence the beauty standards is highlighted when, right after consciousness of African American mothers and her daughter‘s birth, Sweetness tries to kill her have an impact on the mother-daughter baby girl by holding ―a blanket over her face and relationship. Sweetness justifies the ill treatment press[ing]‖ (Morrison 2015, p.5). She even of her daughter Lula Ann and says: thinks ―of giving her away to an orphanage But you have to understand: I had to protect her. someplace‖ (Morrison 2015, p.5). Abandoned She didn‘t know the world. There was no point by her husband due to ―that terrible color‖ in being tough or sassy even when you were (Morrison 2015, p. 5) with which their child was right. Not in a world where you could be sent to born, Sweetness turns against Lula Ann, viewing a juvenile lockup for talking back or fighting in her as a stranger and an enemy. school, a world where you‘d be the last one Alarmed by the inferior position submitted to hired and the first one fired. She couldn‘t know black children like Lula Ann by white American any of that or how her black skin would scare society, Sweetness manages to discipline her white people or make them laugh and trick her. I daughter and teach her ―how to behave, how to once saw a girl nowhere near as dark as Lula keep her head down and not to make trouble‖ Ann and who couldn‘t be more than ten years (Morrison 2015: p. 7). Her submission and old tripped by one of a group of white boys and awareness of American racism and prejudice when she fell and tried to scramble up another and ―of skin privileges‖ ( Morrison 2015, p. 43), one put his foot on her behind and knocked her shapes Sweetness‘ attitude toward the child. The flat again (Morrison 2015, p.41). mother believes that she protects Lula Ann, At the end of the novel, Bride undergoes a because as she says, the child ―didn‘t know the transformation and she finds out that she is world‖ (Morrison 2015, p.41). She begins pregnant from her boyfriend, Booker. The child practicing what she believes is necessary by presents a new life and a new hope that matches
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the state that Bride reached eventually. Morrison 5. Brinig, M. F. & Buckley F. H. (1999) Parental narrates ― A child. New life. Immune to evil or Rights and the Ugly Duckling. Scholarly Works: illness, protected from kidnap, beating, rape, 41-65. racism, insult, hurt, self-loathing, abandonment. 6. Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience: trauma, Error-free. All goodness. Minus wrath. So they narrative, and history. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins believe‖ (Morrison 2015, p.175). University Press. 7. Carter, T. (2012) Measuring Race-Based 4. Conclusion Traumatic Stress Injury: Clinical and Research Instruments. APA Annual Convention, In God Help the Child, there are many Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada,May 3–6. traumatic experiences that affects the 8. Collins, Patricia Hill. (1991) Black Feminist protagonist, Lula Ann. Racial trauma and Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the parental trauma are the key traumas that face the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge. protagonist in the novel. Lula Ann, the 9. Davis, C. (1999) ―Self, Society, and Myth in Toni protagonist faces many unfavorable traumatic Morrison‘s Fiction.‖ Modern Critical Views:Toni incidents because of her skin color and identity Morrison. Ed. Harold Bloom. which is due to the injustice directed to the Philadelphia,Chelsea House . 7-25. Print. African American community in United States 10. DuBois, W.E.B.(1903) The Souls of Black Folk. which is portrayed through the experience of her A.C. McClurg&Co.,Chicago. mother‘s treatment of her. Lula Ann realizes that 11. Duvall, J.(2000) The Identifying Fictions of Toni she should not be commodified and continues Morrison (Modernist Authenticity and her life devoid of her mother‘s influence and Postmodern Blackness. racial influences. Lula Ann‘s identity transforms 12. Erichsen, J.E.(1867) On Railway and Other by refusing to accept the racist stereotypes and Injuries of the Nervous System. Philadelphia, by accepting her own identity which enables her Henry C. Lea. to continue her life with hope and courage. 13. Erikson,K. (1995) ―Notes on Trauma and Racial trauma causes many upheavals and Community.‖Caruth, Trauma 183-99. challenges to the female African American 14. Equiano, O.(1814) The Interesting Narrative of identity which is portrayed in Toni Morrison‘s the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa. novel. Morrison diagnoses the symptoms of the African, London. racial trauma through the novel and presents the 15. Fragkouli,K. (2017) Skin Color Politics and the possibility of healing through hope. Beauty Standard: Examining African American Girlhood in Toni Morrison‘s The Bluest Eye (1970) and God Help the Child (2015). Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki. 5. References 16. Freud, S., & Hutchins, R. M.(1952) The major 1. American Psychiatric Association. (2000) works of Sigmund Freud. Chicago, W. Benton. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental 17. Freud, S. &James S.(1989) Beyond the Pleasure disorders (4th ed.,text (18th ed.). Washington, Principle. Norton. Goulimari, P. (2011) Toni DC, American Psychiatric Association. Morrison. Routledge: New York. 2. Andersen, H. C. (1909-14) The Ugly Duckling. 18. Gross, T. (2015) ―I Regret Everything‘:Toni Harvard, The Harvard Classics, 17 Morrison Looks Back On Her Personal Life‖. April.
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22. Jensen, K. (2013) Toni Morrison‘s Depiction of 35. Scholes, L. (2015) Toni Morrison‘s God Help the Beauty Standards in Relation to Class,Politics of Child. BBC Culture, 21 Respectability, and Consumerism in Song of April.
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