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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page essay that examines the role of myth in Morrison's Beloved. The writer argues that Morrison draws on the biblical story of Cain and Morrison explores the nature of being "marked" by sin in a manner that transposes the myth of Cain to a setting that illuminates the emotional ramifications on the soul of Sethe, Morrison's protagonist. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khmormth.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
meaning or an implication of a myth that the standard ideological interpretation of the Western world refuses to consider (615). Therefore, drawing on Henry Louis Gates term,
minority writers, such as Morrison, "double-voice" myth through a process of repetition and revision (Jones 615). This process is applied by Morrison in her novel Beloved to the mythic
story of Cain and Abel in Genesis. Morrison explores the nature of being "marked" by sin in a manner that transposes the myth of Cain to a setting that
illuminates the emotional ramifications on the soul of Sethe, Morrisons protagonist. Rather than the mark of Cain, which has been connected by some to Ham, "the father of the
black race," Jones feels that the principal connection between the biblical Cain and Morrisons interpretation of this mythic story is Cains "complete refusal to remember and to mourn" (615).
Cain denied responsibility. In Genesis 4:9, he asks, "Am I my brothers keeper?" Concerned solely with himself, Cain does not acknowledge the repercussions of his act. This refusal
is the "mark" upon him. Similarly, Sethe is both sinned against and sinning, and she, like Cain, complicates her situation by refusing to acknowledge the role that her actions played
in her own tragedy. While Sethe is still enslaved, she is treated by Schoolteachers despicable nephews as if she were no more than an animal. They hold her
down and drink her breast milk. Then they whip her, which creates the "chokeberry tree" pattern on her back. Sethe, like Cain, is marked by her experience. Jones argues that
comprehending and overcoming this mark, which symbolize the experience of slavery, has to do with coming to terms with the past (616). Jones writes that memory is a "special and
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