Order Description
Foucault emphasizes the importance of identifying the ways that the real conditions of existence are represented in texts and asking questions like, what are the modes of existence of this
discourse? Given this question, we can see that the representation of haunting in Beloved represents many different things. As Baby Suggs observes, “Not a house in the country ain’t packed to its
rafters with some dead Negro’s grief” (6). Formulate a focused argument explaining why Morrison chose the image of haunting and ghosts to tell this story about slavery. You might want to consider
the following questions: what does Beloved represent? How does she function in the narrative, that is, what purpose does she serve? How does Beloved describe the place where she was before she
returned to Sethe? How is the haunting described? How is haunting related to history and memory? What is it that Beloved wants?
