1.2 Functions of Fragmented Narrative

In Beloved, fragmented narrative displays Morrison’s embracing of differences, which proves the significant and necessary existence of each specific element, big or small, old or new, light or dark. Her attention to differences deconstructs the center (climax), and thereby surpasses the rigid conflicting mode of the binary opposition of subject and object, self and other, us and them, white and black (Jiao Xiaoting 29-30). Fragmented narrative is also significant for rethinking the subject, grappling with the subject’s relation to space and time, finding socially appropriate and viable forms of representation, and multiplicity (Jiao Xiaoting 19).

1.3 Literature Review

In the foreword of Beloved, Morrison pointed out that in trying to make the slave experience intimate, she hoped the sense of things being both under control and out of control would be persuasive throughout; that the order and quietude of everyday life would be violently disrupted by the chaos of the needy death; that the herculean effort to forget would be threatened by memory desperate to stay alive. And fragmented narrative is an essential technique to render enslavement as a personal experience. 

Judith Thurman also argues in The New Yorker that the technique of narrative is just like drawing on a piece of glass, she smashes it, and then weaves them in the form of irrelevance. When readers have finished reading the whole story, they gradually find out the truth, establish association between broken past, present and future, and lead the fragmentation of the self and a loss of true identity into a whole self and identity (Wang Shouren & Wu Xinyun 135). 

In Neo-realism in Contemporary Afro-American Novel, Luo Hong says that Morrison uses fragmented narrative to describe the place where the event happens—124 Bluestone Street, and 124 is also the beginning of each chapter. Sweet House is another place that appears frequently in Sethe’s and Paul D’s memories and conversations. Morrison does not describe Sweet House directly, however, a whole picture of Sweet House can be formed in readers’ mind once they put fragments together (205). From Beloved’s discontinuous memories, the identity of Beloved is complex. She is Sethe’s dead daughter, Sethe’s mother as well as sixty million and more children of slaves (211). 

According to the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud (1856—1939), the inhibition of harrowing experience, a demonstration of fragmented narrative, is unconscious (Wang Shouren & Wu Xinyun 133). Only when literature reach the area of unconsciousness, can it be regarded as the truth in psychological aspect (Lu Yang 19). Fragmented narrative contributes to the coexistence of past and present, and obscures the boundary of the reality and illusion, truth and memory. And it is also a reflection of the true and cruel slavery (Wang Shouren & Wu Xinyun 134). What’s more, readers can get information through narrators’ narration, and they also can get information from characters’ inner world (Currie 23). Therefore, characters’ thoughts are important to obtain the information about their experiences as slaves.

Yang Renjing has mentioned in New Historicism and American Minority Fiction that the plots in Beloved are torn into fragments by Morrison. Recalling past and evading past, narrating event and evading narration are interwoven. Fragmented narrative requires readers to participate in reconstructing story, analyze the relationship of characters, piece the memories together (118). 

In Sex, Race, Culture, Wang Shouren and Wu Xinyun argue that Morrison has realized the limitation of language when she describes characters’ experiences, and she also believes that language can never describe what happened exactly. Therefore, she uses different narrative techniques in Beloved, which emphasize the importance of readers’ participation. She expects readers to organize all fragments into a whole by their own understanding and imagination (136). Once readers become familiar with estranging forms, however, they lose their shock value (Martin 47). Besides, in Beloved, Morrison makes a great effort to contribute to the coexistence of past and present and she narrates the memories of past fitfully, for she takes materials of novel into consideration. She thinks that readers should get mentally prepared before they get the whole story (Wang Shouren & Wu Xinyun 135).