Seeking Freedom through Self-Love in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Beloved

Toni Morrison chose to revisit the neo-slave narrative genre twenty-five years after the publication of Beloved with A Mercy in 2008. With these two texts, Morrison offers her readers one story that shows the descent into slavery and one that shows progression towards freedom. The purpose of this thesis is to place Morrison’s two neo-slave narratives, Beloved and A Mercy, next to one another in order to better understand the journey to freedom through self-love. This work examines the concept of self-love and the necessary components—maternal nurturance, ancestral connection, and communal interaction—that must come together to help Morrison’s characters learn to love and see themselves as their “own best thing.” The repercussions that self-love’s absence has for both individual characters and their larger communities is also discussed and illustrated by the struggles of Florens in A Mercy and Sethe in Beloved.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Walker, Stephanie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Katherine Bassard

• Motherhood
• Motherline
• Self-Love
• Toni Morrison
• Beloved
• A Mercy
• neo-slave narrative
• Community
• ancestral memory
• Arts and Humanities
• English Language and Literature

Statement dc:rights

• © The Author

Identifier

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/417

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1416