The Use of Ghosts in Beloved and Beyond the Limbo Silence

In the face of the loss of familial bonds founded in New World slavery, the African-American Toni Morrison and the Caribbean Elizabeth Nunez reverse the rupture of history and identity by a reinvention of the mother daughter relationship. The distinct hauntings dramatized in Beloved and Beyond the Limbo Silence are founded in the Yoruba tradition brought from West Africa. This study demonstrates the efficacy of ghost mother interactions as a vitalizing method toward the healing of historical trauma and identity. Ghosts in therapeutic roles confirm the authoritative and historiographic power that the writers may conjure.