Reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage The Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing

Vicent Cucarella-Ramon

doi:10.14198/fem.2022.40.04

Autores/as

Vicent Cucarella-Ramon Universitat de València, Valencia, España https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1547-2273

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14198/fem.2022.40.04

Palabras clave:

intertextualidad, esclavitud, maternidad, fantasma, memoria, Morrison, Ward.

Resumen

Partiendo del concepto de «factility» de Harold Bloom, esto es, la influencia inevitable de los textos que siguen la tradición del legado cultural de la diáspora africana, este articulo examina la relación intertextual entre Beloved de Morrison y las novelas de Ward Salvage the Bones y Sing, Unburied, Sing. En Salvage the Bones Ward se basa en Beloved para recrear el mito de Medea y repensar la maternidad negra para seguir interrogándose sobre cuestiones de auto-definición y el sentido de comunidad con el objetivo de ofrecer una concepción más matizada de la realidad de la mujer negra sometida a diferentes capas de opresión. En Sing, Unburied, Sing Ward relee Beloved para analizar la importancia de la memoria diaspórica y su papel para fagocitar lazos familiares y curación usando el tropo morrisoniano del fantasma con sus heridas traumáticas, para ejemplificar las distintas maneras en las que la memoria colectiva ha mantenido históricamente unidas las comunidades afroamericanas. Este ejercicio intertextual expone el modo en el que las novelas de Ward examinan el violento legado de la esclavitud que se desprende de la obra de Morrison, así como sus nuevas prácticas en las familias y comunidades afroamericanas desde el pasado hasta el presente.

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