Toni Morrison et Hanif Kureishi (document en anglais)

Toni Morrison and Hanif Kureishi are two English-speaking authors. They have different cultural origins and wrote about them. Beloved of Toni Morrison and The Buddha of suburbia by Hanif Kureishi are about origins.

We can ask us in which way those two books show how the white society mistreat others ethnic groups and what are the consequences.

In the first part we will see the harmful effect of the white society. In agreement with this part, we will analyse the reactions of foreign people toward this pressure. And to finish, we will observe the differences adaptation in a white society between generations of ethnic groups.

The evils of white society are present in these two books through two different topics, the American slave society and the British society after the war.

The subject of Beloved is slavery, through the story of Seth. The harmful effects are visible since the beginning because we learn that killed one of his children. Throughout the book, you can also see that blacks are treated like animals: for example, Seth must have sex to put the name of her daughter’s grave. Then comes the fact that slaves have no name, they are all named Paul A, D, or F there is even one called No. 6. To give an example of mistreatment of slaves, we can cite a passage that occurs after Paul had tried to kill his new master: “Les poignets qu’il tendit aux menottes ce soir-là étaient aussi fermes que les jambes sur lesquelles il était campées lorsque les chaines furent verrouillées aux fers de chevilles. Seulement quand ils le poussèrent dans la boîte et laissèrent choir la porte de la cage, ses mains cessèrent d’obéir aux ordres. Indépendantes, elles voyageaient. Rien ne pouvait les arrêter ni retenir leur attention. Elles refusaient de tenir son pénis pour uriner ou une cuillère pour s’enfourner les grumeaux de haricots dans la bouche.” “-Hiii!-c ‘était le seul son à part “oui monsieur”, qu’un homme noir soit autorisé à émettre le matin.”

After the Second World War, the English have had need of foreigners to rebuild the country. The Buddha of suburbia tells the story of a Paki, Karim. But the British have never accepted the foreigners, so there is racism, exclusion and differences between whites and foreigners. There is an opposition between city center and suburbia is, which is shown by the opposition between pure English ad these who are born elsewhere. For example chapter 2 page 24 Karim’s father « Had never seen the English in poverty, as read sweepers, dustmen, shopkeepers and barmen. He’d never seen an Englishman stuffing bread into his mouth with his fingers and no one has told him the English didn’t wash regularly because the water was so cold- if they had water at all ». Already we can see strong segregation in society toward people of diverse origins and this emigrate feels like a social burden.

Those two books show throughout the slavery society and the post war years the way in which white people dominate those of others ethnic groups. Torture, discrimination and segregation can lead, in hard case, to murder which are harmful results of this mistreatment.

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Against the dominance of white peoples, foreigners have different reactions. Although there are several examples, we will talk about the own exclusion and the lost of identity.

Thanks to these two books, we can explain two different kind of own rejection: the rejection toward the society and the rejection of his own roots.

The story of Beloved start in a strange house which/who (we can use the both expression because she/it is personify) is haunted. From the beginning, we can see a strong attachment to Seth for her house. She seems to live in a protect area and she doesn’t want to be with other people. This reaction happens because of the attacks she suffered.

In the Buddha of suburbia, Karim, to be integrated, goes through different stages. One of them is to rejects his roots under the pressure of whites and their prejudices. To give an example, Karim plays in the play « the Jungle Book », he plays Mowgli. But the movie director asks him to put a costume and to adopt a stronger India accent. Page 216-217 édition française 10/18 “ Dès que je me sentis à l’aise dans mon pagne et sous ma couche de cirage, quand j’eus appris mon texte avant les autres, lorsque je fus devenu aussi agile qu’un petit orang- outan sur le praticable je compris que notre conflit n’était pas terminé. Shawell me prit à part et me dit : « un mot à propos de l’accent, Karim. Je crois qu’il faudrait que tu aies un accent authentique. – Que voulez-vous dire par authentique ?- Ou est né notre petit Mowgli ?-Aux Indes (…) Non, Jeremy, je vous en prie, pas ça.- Karim, tu as été engagé pour tes qualités d’authenticité, pas pour ton expérience. »” He didn’t want do it, nevertheless he did and accepted the stereotypes against his culture.

The reactions of the first part are caused by the weight of the origins

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