Re-writing the past from an ex-centric space : the revision and retrhinking of slavery in American hIStory in Morrison’s belloved and a mercy and in smiley’s the all-true travels and adventures of Lidie Newton

Abstract

This paper examines Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and A Mercy (2008) and Jane Smiley’s The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (1998) from a perspective which combines the fields of postcolonial and postmodern literary studies. Accordingly, this thesis aims at showing how these novels portray ex-centricity and, secondly, at explaining how, from an ex-centric perspective, they explore and revise the concept, understanding and implications of slavery in American history. Narrative devices and character portrayal are considered. Notion such as Hutcheon’s “the ex-centric” ([1988] 2004), Bhabha’s ([1994] 2004) and Mohanty’s (1986; 2003) “difference” and Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin’s “double colonization” (2000) are central to the present work which intends to provide a detailed analysis of the corpus, seeing how these categories operate in understanding and interpreting the texts and in creating a space from which to rethink and revise the history of slavery in the US in the times depicted by the novels.