Toni Morrison: Defamiliarization and Metaphor in Song of Solomon and Beloved

Abstract

In my thesis I discuss formal aspects of two novels by Toni Morrison. In Song of Solomon I trace the development of the song and other musical metaphors. The proposition I make is that the gradual construction of the song is a defamiliarization of the process of discovering your history, especially your ancestral roots. This discovery is slowly being made by Milkman Dead who undertakes a quest to find information about his family past. In my introduction I explain the concept of defamiliarization which stems from Russian Formalism. The term represents the way in which literature, and art in general, obliquely and ceremoniously depicts human experience by enstranging objects, events or abstract phenomena in order to slow down the reader’s perception so that he or she will “read” the world more profoundly. I choose to see the song as the main narratological tool in Song of Solomon to achieve this goal. However, other elements contribute in the defamiliarizing process and I also discuss aspects such as naming, the imagery of flight, the symbolic eggs, and the symbolism of bones. In Beloved, too, a main theme is the characters’ relationship with an often repressed memory (or “rememory”). Sethe, the mother of Beloved, has a tree-shaped scar on her back, a cicatrice she got after being whipped as a slave. This tree is symbolically significant in the novel as it occurs in many configurations and contexts. Some scholars see the tree as a metaphorical text which is inscribed on Sethe’s body. Sethe herself cannot see this inscription which is a metaphor for a past she needs to “rememory” and acknowledge. In my conclusion I briefly compare the defamiliarizing metaphors of the two novels. Finally, there is a hope for the future for both Sethe and Milkman, if they will only connect to their respective stories, which are concealed in the tree and in the song.