Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Special Issue on Literature No. 4 October, 2016 Pp. 118-127
Psycho-politics in Morrison’s Beloved and Home: A Comparative Study
Hanan K. Jezawi
Department of English Language and Literature
Irbid University College, Al-Balqa’ Applied University
Irbid, Jordan
Abdel-Rahman H. Abu-Melhim
Department of English Language and Literature
Irbid University College, Al-Balqa’ Applied University
Irbid, Jordan
Abstract:
This study is an attempt to examine Toni Morrison’s two novels Beloved (1987) and Home (2012) based on Frantz Fanon’s theory of “psycho-politics” in which he combines politics with psychology. The main focus has been on examining the effect of colonization on blacks physically and mentally. Black people are haunted by harsh memories from their past and thus they find it difficult to recover from the influence of the colonization. Traumatic past, consciousness, violence, and alienation are going to be discussed as results of slavery. Therefore, this paper will investigate slaves and their masters in order to clarify the experience of slavery. The harshness of the blacks’ actions are based on psychological suppression of their past. Fanon’s work provides awareness into the psychology of colonial oppression in dehumanized and oppressed communities. His criticism is interpreted through the understanding of power, violence and subordination and thus he examined the character of the black man or woman through the system of values in the white culture. Therefore, Fanon brings “politics into psychology” and “psychology into Politics” by analyzing power within a series of psycho-analytical conceptions.
Keywords: Beloved, Home, Morrison, post-colonialism, Psycho-politics