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Punished Bodies in Soyinka’s The Bacchae of Euripides and Morrison’s Beloved

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: fethiaelhafi{at}yahoo.fr.

	Abstract

Wole Soyinka’s The Bacchae of Euripides and Toni Morrison’s Beloved present the reader with a slave population that was uprooted and deported. Both works teem with punished bodies. Institutionalized slavery, as a condition, prevents the slaves from a bundle of rights, and the slave body is defined by its utility to the process of slave labor. Labor is performed under condition of bondage. Working on the plantation or in the mine constitutes the justification of the suffering experienced by the slaves. Pain becomes the foundation for resistance. Rebellion, as an expression of collective will, is triggered by the slaves’ awareness of their enslavement. Both writers beautify pain and seem to suggest that the world had to be made anew by those coming out of slavery. The promise of a new life is present in the regenerating powers of vegetation.

First published on March 5, 2009
Journal of Black Studies 2009, doi:10.1177/0021934709331917


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