Representation of Traumatization In Morrison's Beloved from A Caruthian Perspective

Abstract

The study analyzes traumatization as a process in Beloved (1987), written by an Afro-American writer, Toni Morrison,following Cathy Caruth’s (1996) trauma theory, which states that "a shock that appears to work very much like a bodily threat is, in fact, a break in the mind's experience of time" (Caruth 1996: 61). Traumatization can be used as a process in literature and is frequently and intricately linked to pain in ways one does not fully comprehend. This research study follows one of the types of textual analysis, i.e., the Content Qualitative Method introduced by Bernard Berelson (1952) in communication research, which demonstrates that ‘content analysis is a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of clear content of the communication. It also analyzes the reactions of the victimized characters to the horrific incidents they encountered. As a result of being traumatized by slavery and murdering her own daughter, Sethe suffers the most visible split. It builds a bridge between the events in the narrative and the readers' imaginations to get to know the psychology of victims in an altered state of consciousness.