Body resistance and rites of transformation in Toni morrison's God help the child and beloved

Abstract

This research work explores representations of the African-American people's struggle and their ideological transformation manifested in their bodily experiences in a racist-claustrophobic American society. The bodily transformation of African-Americans liberates themselves through a bodily resistance to unravel their independent self. Morrison’s protagonists become enlightened and experienced individuals in a similar way where they go through separation, liminality, and reintegration during rituals. Central characters in Morrison's God Help the Child (2015) and Beloved (1987) present the rites of transformation of black body. They preserve their dignity and identity in a new communitas creating their own agency and solidarity after going through liminality, a rite of political transformation of self into agency to resist against the social injustice. Communitas is a well defined social space in equilibrium, comparatively having no injustice, segregation and disorder where one’s identity is restored through a bodily and psychic liberation passing through a liminal phase. Morrison's God Help the Child and Beloved depict the characters, Bride and Sethe, through rituals of bodily transformation as a site of resistance along with severe corporeal repression and being reintegrated into a new communitas. Keywords: Body, Rites of transformation, Liminality, Communitas, Resistance, Agency, Identity