Raccontare storie per costruire storia: la vicenda della schiavitù nella narrativa di Toni Morrison

Abstract

In her essay, Telling stories to create history: slavery in Toni Morrison’s fiction, Itala Vivan analyzes the fictional work of the African American writer Toni Morrison and focuses especially on Beloved (1987) and A Mercy (2008), both stories of women slaves. Through individual stories Morrison gives a history of the African American community but also, at the same time, of the whole of America. The writer reveals the consubstantiality of such stories in the creation of modernity whose multiple nature, originally announced by William Edward Burghardt DuBois, is reconfirmed and enriched with elements from the cultural imagery of the American universe. Morrison outlines a history and a story built of unspeakable truths that unveil tragic, multi-layered elements streaming from the veins of America and intertwined with the running blood of slavery.

Keywords: Toni Morrison, schiavitù, storia delle donne, America, Beloved, A Mercy, letteratura afroamericana; Toni Morrison, slavery, America, Beloved, A Mercy, African-American literature, women’s history.