Traumatic Racial Encounters in Toni Morrison's God Help the Child

Abstract

This research work examines the cultural trauma of the characters with a cultural embodiment of race in the sophisticated but claustrophobic contemporary American society. Morrison's God Help the Child projects the pain and trauma that live under the colored skin as a part of author's and her character Bride's immense suppression of their desire as a triggering force to past memories. Further, this research explores how the traces of slavery of the past reconstitute trauma and how an interplay between dominant and residual culture shapes the trauma of the African Americans. Morrison reveals the inter-racial and intra-racial conflicts in the new generations of the Americans by presenting the traumatic mind of her protagonist Bride who, in the name of color, is despised and expelled everywhere, making her traumatized. Eventually, she succeeds to recover and turns her grief into strength. The way through which such trauma is coped up with is a researchable issue. It unfolds individual's consciousness of racism and its influence on individual psyche as a part of cultural trauma. Further it unfolds the inter-racial and intra-racial consciousness among the African Americans as they develop some guilt complexes within themselves remaining in an illusion due to their double consciousness which is an internal conflict experienced by them in an oppressive society. This internalized racism still exists in the contemporary American society.