Why Choose Beloved and Maus as Exemplary Narratives?

Beloved and Maus are both American novels in which the theme of overcoming past de-humanization is particulary strong. On this page, I attempt to show,

Beloved and Maus in the context of American literature
The five novels that were discusses briefly can be divided into two categories: the books that  provide a meta-narrative for the American people, as opposed to the books that link a particular ethnic experience to the greater American narrative. Beloved and Maus are examples of a particular ethnic experience, yet, both novels link themselves to the American meta-narrative.

Quite simply, the one great meta-narrative per se is "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville, the second one is, arguably, Mark Twain's "Puddn'head Wilson". Both books are written by White Anglo-Saxon Males who have dominated the American cultural and literary scene for much of its past, and, most importantly, when the American meta-narrative was created.

The second category, the novel about the particular ethnic experience includes Toni Morrison's "Beloved", Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony" and Art Spiegelman's "Maus". They are narratives that witness a particular experience of one ethnic group in America, but they also link themselves back to the American meta-narrative, thus becoming part of it, and enabling WASC-kids such as many Georgetown-students, to include these enthnic group in their sense of "we Americans". It is this last observation about Beloved and Maus - that these novels make the particular effort to tell the tale of one ethnic group so that main-stream America can include that particular ethnic group in it's sense of 'us' - that makes them particularly good examples for discussion.

And while Beloved shares with Ceremony that it is about an experience in America, and while Maus is about an experience outside of America, I have left out Ceremony because it resembles Beloved, and included Maus because it is still written about an American ethnic group, for an American audience, and is focusing on the epitomen of 20th century de-humanization, the Holocaust.

Two other topics to discuss
From here, two themes branch off:

Relating back to Humanization through literature
I believe that the discussion of the depiction of de-humanization and the overcoming of it reflects neatly on aspects of the main topic of "the recognition of a common humanity through literature".
 
Looking at 'de-humanization' is looking at what literature, the tool of 'humanization', seeks to overcome. In that sense, de-humanization precedes literature, and becomes a cause for, and of literature. Accordingly, a reflection on de-humanization is also a meta-reflection on literature. Yet, we will, and through both accounts - of the depiction of, and of the overcoming of de-humanization -  plunge ever deeper into the literature itself. By closing in on "Maus" and "Beloved", and focusing on two of it's characters, the interpretation of these details of novels typical of the American Literatury Tradition will provide a greater understanding of American Literary Traditions as a whole. 

to the right: "Saving men by naming them" - a scene from Schindler's list, and the task of literature as a tool of humanization

  

 

Back to Main page 1
 

* Five novels as tools of humanization * - * Depicting de-humanization * - * Overcoming de-humanization *
Overview Over Project: Themes and Links