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Toni Morrison's Beloved: A Journey through the Pain of Grief

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Abstract

This paper elucidates the structure of Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, using the framework of human emotions in response to grieving and death as developed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Through her studies of terminally ill patients, Kubler-Ross identified five stages when approaching death: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These stages accurately fill the process that the character Sethe experiences in the novel as she learns to accept her daughter’s death.

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Notes

  1. Bouson, Quiet As It's Kept, 131.

  2. Morrison, Beloved, 1987, 4. All subsequent references to this work are included in the text.

  3. Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying, 16. All subsequent references to this work are included in the text.

  4. Bouson, 136.

  5. Kubler-Ross, On Children and Death, 99.

  6. Bouson, 150.

  7. Peach, Toni Morrison, 125.

  8. Harris, Fiction and Folklore, 151.

  9. Samuels and Hudson-Weems, Toni Morrison, 131.

  10. Samuels and Hudson-Weems, 131.

  11. Kubler-Ross, On Children and Death, 167.

References

  • J. B. Bouson, Quiet As It's Kept: Shame, Trauma, and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison. State University of New York Press, Albany, 2000.

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  • T. Harris, Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison. U of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1999.

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  • E. Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and Their Own Families. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1969.

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  • E. Kubler-Ross, On Children and Death: How Children and their Parents Can and Do Cope with Death. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1983.

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  • T. Morrison, Beloved. Plume, New York, 1987.

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  • L. Peach, Toni Morrison. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1989.

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  • W. D. Samuels, C. Hudson-Weems, Toni Morrison. Twayne, Boston, 1990

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 228.388.5769, University College of Tulane, Biloxi, MS 39531, 156 Benachi Avenue, Biloxi, MS, 39530, Mexico

    Olivia McNeely Pass

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  1. Olivia McNeely Pass
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Correspondence to Olivia McNeely Pass.

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Pass, O.M. Toni Morrison's Beloved: A Journey through the Pain of Grief. J Med Humanit 27, 117–124 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-006-9010-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-006-9010-0

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