Too Huge a Theme for Too Slight a TreatmentToni Morrison’s God Help the Child

  1. Ibarrola Armendáriz, Aitor
Libro:
Taking stock to look ahead: celebrating forty years of English studies in Spain
  1. María Ferrández San Miguel (coord.)
  2. Claus-Peter Neumann (coord.)

Editorial: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza ; Universidad de Zaragoza

ISBN: 978-84-16723-51-5

Año de publicación: 2018

Páginas: 75-84

Congreso: Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos. Congreso (40. 2016. Huesca)

Tipo: Aportación congreso

Resumen

In eleven novels over four decades, Toni Morrison’s fiction has dealt with such prickly issues as the hold that the past exerts over the present, the power and perils of small communities or the wounds caused on bodies and minds by all sorts of abuses. Her latest novel, God Help the Child (2015), revisits some of those earlier themes, but it focuses more closely on the topics of child abuse and colorism—the internal racism of blacks against darker skin shades. What is new in God Help the Child is that the story is set in present-day California, where the rate of child violence and victimization—especially among black children—is just overwhelming. The main aim of this paper is to show that, despite Morrison’s unquestionable narrative skill and her audacious form— with constant shifts in point of view and language—one must conclude that the theme