The Quest for Home in Toni Morrison's Beloved

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject American Studies - Literature grade: 17 University of Constance language: English abstract: This paper will attempt to analyze the concepts of home in Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. Sites of home in Beloved are seldomly what we expect them to be because the author wants us to question our understanding of home and the processes that constitute it. So far remarkably few critics focused on home in Morrison's novel that is based on the historical person Margaret Garner. Among those who did are most notably Danielle Russell and Justine Tally. In order to consider this an examination of the concept of home in Gothic as well as postcolonial literature seems helpful. Note on the restrictions of this essay may seem necessary as only a short and unfortunately survey of the concepts of home in Gothic and postcolonial fiction can be given. Nonetheless effort was given to mention the major developments of home and give possible motivations for employing it. The paper will then continue with a closer examination of the sites of home in Beloved mentioned before.