Reconstruction of Beloved from the new historical perspective

This thesis, based on a comparative study of Toni Morrison's Beloved and the story of Margaret Garner collected in Black Book from the new historical perspective and analysis of other authors' responses to the story, reveals the devastation of American slavery over human nature. By reconsidering the cultural context of Beloved and its representation, this paper concludes that Toni Morrison refuses to distinguish between "fiction" and "history" but instead focuses on "who is telling the story of the past, and how the story confines contemporary understanding of American slavery," and thus embodies the theoretical achievements of American new historicism and the textual practices.