Terror, Hospitality and the Gift of Death in Morrison’sBeloved

Authors

  • Puspa Damai

Keywords:

Terror, Autoimmunity, Deconstruction, Hospitality, Spectrality

Abstract

 

The “us versus them” narrative still pre-dominates the analysis of terrorism in the West, which invariably associates “them” with terrorism. Toni Morrison’s hauntingly memorable novel – Beloved – provides a radically different and historically grounded view of terror and terrorism in the West. The novel not only releases us from the “us versus them” paradigm by demonstrating America’s intimacy with terror, it also enables us to examine terror and terrorism from the perspective of a gendered and ethnic subject who subverts the easy categorization of “us” and “them” or civilized and terrorist.  Following Jacques Derrida’s contemplations on death and terror, I contend that Morrison’s novel foregrounds autoimmunity, the gift of death and hospitality as key components in the experience of terror for a subject of colonialism and slavery.

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Author Biography

Puspa Damai

Puspa Damai is Assistant Professor of English at Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia. He has published a number of articles in journals including CR: the New Centennial ReviewDiscourse; and Postcolonial Text. His research and teaching interests focus on multi-ethnic American literature, postcolonial literature and literary theory. Currently he is working on a book-length study of hospitality and decolonization in American Literature.

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Published

2021-10-27

How to Cite

Damai , P. (2021). Terror, Hospitality and the Gift of Death in Morrison’sBeloved. Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, 1(1), 129–146. Retrieved from https://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/28