Race, Trauma, and Home in the Novels of Toni Morrison by Evelyn Jaffe Schreiber

Author:Evelyn Jaffe Schreiber
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780807138175
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

FOUR

Bodies of Trauma

Memory, Home, and Subjectivity in Love

As we saw in the previous chapter, neither relocation nor total isolation alleviates the deeply rooted trauma carried over from slavery. Aggression, an alternative response that mirrors the master narrative, serves as an insufficient solution, as we saw in chapter 2. As in Morrison’s previous novels, in Love characters are displaced from home, orphaned, and abandoned, and even Cosey himself, like others, remains scarred by American culture. Cultural re-creation of slave trauma indicates the deficiency of the white mirror for black culture, and despite movements of social progress, white culture’s denial of black desire perpetuates the black struggle for subjectivity. In Love, Cosey’s Hotel and Resort serves both as a physical and a psychic space, a site of personal and collective memory that boosts the self-concept of Cosey’s community and of his family. Yet the helplessness resulting from both communal and personal trauma overwhelms the characters, and like Morrison’s other novels, Love illustrates the reliance on the past and memory for a sense of self.

Nostalgic memory, connected to home as a physical place and the people associated with it, protects the fragile ego. Both the past and possessions come to represent home in their reflection of a positive self. Love suggests that despite the historical distance from slavery, the black community remains vulnerable to cultural forces. Characters rely solely on family members and a sheltered, small community to reflect a self, with access to wealth and power shaping status and thus subjectivity. The failure of Cosey’s Hotel and Resort, like the failure of Ruby in Paradise and Macon’s summer homes at Honore in Song of Solomon, suggests that despite shifts in social conditions, a core trauma remains. Healing requires giving voice to black trauma so as to override the values of white culture and name personal desire.

Love tells the story of Bill Cosey, the effect of his Hotel and Resort on his Florida community, and the family that survives him. Cosey uses the money his father makes as an informant to create a vacation escape for the greater black community. In addition, Cosey employs many blacks in the local vicinity and serves as a role model because of his generosity and success. His loyal cook, L, adds warmth to the hotel and helps to raise his son, Billy, when Cosey’s wife dies. Billy marries May, the daughter of an impoverished minister, who makes it her mission to keep Billy and Cosey happy and the hotel in superlative condition. Unfortunately, Billy dies young, leaving May and their daughter, Christine, in Bill Cosey’s care. After playing the field, Cosey chooses to marry Heed, Christine’s eleven-year-old lower-class playmate. This action results in tensions and hostilities among the women in the household that escalate when Bill Cosey dies, leaving a questionable will.

The novel opens with an aging Christine and Heed at war over Cosey’s property, with Heed hiring a young homeless waif, Junior, to assist her. For both Christine and Heed, Cosey’s property represents a worthy self. By fighting over the estate, they express their need for personal recognition.

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