Call Her Beloved: A Lexicon for Abjection in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Beloved

Abstract

What does it mean to mourn for the loss of lives that are rendered ungrievable by history? More importantly, with what language does one grieve the loss or despoliation of lives that are rendered ungrievable through disremembrance? This study reads such concerns as represented in two novels by Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye and Beloved. Drawing on theorizations of the Other and the Abject in the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Julia Kristeva, respectively, the readings of Morrison’s novels presented here seek to conceptualize the impacts of racial and racist oppression as the fallout from experiences of othering in the extreme. Confronting the desecration of human life and dignity engendered through racism, the study argues, is a descent into abjection. Through exploring Morrison’s narrative project, as explained in her non-fiction, this study seeks to conceptualize a possible lexicon for grieving the Abject without appropriating it or in any way diminishing its specific and radical alterity as a despoiled being.