The Haunting of Ethnic Writers

Paper Summary:

This paper compares the themes of haunting and ghosts in African-American writer Toni Morrison's books "Beloved" and "Sula", native-American writer Leslie Marmon Silko's novel "Ceremony "and Indian screenwriter and film producer M. Night Shyamalan film "The Sixth Sense". The presence of the past, or a haunting, the paper points out, conveys the importance of the past and its inability to be completely forgotten. Next, the paper relates how these ethnic writers establish the theme of haunting and ghosts by using similar characters, who experience similar traumatic events and deal with them in similar ways. Furthermore, the paper concludes that these three ethnic writers employ friction between characters in order to suggest greater social truths.

From the Paper:

"Similarly, in Crowe's attempt to deal with the traumatic shooting that changed, and actually ended, his life, the psychologist is torn from the person with whom he has the most important relationship in his life--his wife. Like Nel and Sula in the wake of trauma, the two are unable to continue living a normal existence. In this scenario, however, the rolls are actually reversed. Like Nel, Crowe's wife attempts to live the conventional existence after the shooting, tying to get back into a normal way of living without letting the incident loom over every moment in her life."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Matus, Jill. Toni Morrison: Contemporary World Writers. New York: Manchester University Press, 1998.
• Wesselman, Debbie Lee. "Sula." Mostly Fiction. 2006. June 30, 2008. <http://www.mostlyfiction.com/contemp/morrison.htm>/
• Winsbro, Bonnie. Forces: Belief, Deliverance, and Power in Contemporary Works by Ethnic Women. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993.

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• Comparison Essay # 122 : "Beloved" and "The Haunting of Hill House"
• Analytical Essay # 9237 : "The Emancipation of Female Writers in Early Nineteenth Century Britain"
• Analytical Essay # 62723 : "The Emergence of an American Ethnic Pattern"

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