Violence and Racism in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, Paradise, and God Help the Child in the View of Slavoj Žižek

Document Type : علمی - پژوهشی

Authors

1 Khatam University

2 Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, Department of English Language, Khatam University, Tehran, Iranَ

Abstract

The present study in an analysis of violence and racism in the three novels of Tony Morison in light of Slavoj Žižek (1949-) theory of violence. Subjective violence refers to visible crime and terror in the social and individual level. Objective violence is both visible and invisible, manifested in forms of systemic violence in racism, hate-speech, discrimination, and systemic violence as the catastrophic effects of economic and political systems. In A Mercy, slave trade, rape, and mercy represented ontological violence, subjective violence, and systemic violence, respectively. In Paradise, that is a reaction to racism and consequence of segregation laws, not only subjective violence is still committed, but also it is changed into invisible or objective forms such as interracial violence and intergenerational conflict. In God Help the Child, while all forms of violence are still performed, interracial conflict (between members of a colored family) reveals that new layers of violence and exploitation are reproduced which challenged the post-racial claims and endorses colorblind racism and emergence of racial identity crisis. Therefore, Morison considers racial norms as social and ideological constructions of colonialism that are regularly transformative and generative.

Keywords

References

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Critical Language and Literary studies
Volume 17, Issue 25
January 2021
Pages 187-210

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