Trauma, Mind Style, and Unreliable Narration in Toni Morrison's Home

Abstract

abstract:This article provides a twofold reading of Toni Morrison's novel Home. In the first instance, the stylistic representation of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is explored in relation to Frank's mind style; this is done through a focused examination on passages related to Frank's misremembered murder of a girl during his time as a soldier in the Korean War. Frank's guilt and faulty memories, and his lingering experience of PTSD, lead to the issue of narrative unreliability. This article shows how not just Frank himself but also the unspecified third-person narrator is just as unreliable as Frank, if not more so. The seemingly contentious relationship between Frank and the other narrator ultimately leads to Frank's realization about his hand in the murder of the Korean girl, and hence to a coming to terms with and recovery from war-induced PTSD.