THE QUANDARY OF MNEME AND ANAMNESIS IN TONI MORRISON'S BELOVED: THE REPOSSESSION OF THE PRESENT BY THE PAST
THE QUANDARY OF MNEME AND ANAMNESIS IN TONI MORRISON'S BELOVED: THE REPOSSESSION OF THE PRESENT BY THE PAST

Summary/Abstract: Beloved underscores the several interchangeable identities of Sethe in the context of slavery, in a continuous play of Mneme (μνήμη) and Anamnesis (ἀνάμνησις). Beloved constitutes itself in a convoluted and gendered narrative of enslavement based on traumatic events which shape Sethe’s identity and her family’s life. In Sethe’s case, her memories create a framework for her existence after the destruction of her identity caused by slavery. The novel creates a theory regarding the indestructible and inescapable nature of the past, since Sethe considers that the traumas of the past are forever reenacted by the present. Mneme is an attempt of Sethe’s to re-live the past happy moments and to remember her old self – who she was before becoming psychologically and physically scarred and maimed – whereas Anamnesis is a reappropriation – the recalling to mind of traumatic events – representing an essay to overcome her tribulations and create Sethe anew. While she tries to be faithful to the past, she feels compelled to dis-member and re-member herself, by re-living past events in her present, as well as to deliver a sense of the past to future generations.

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