A Phantasmatic Reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved

This research paper discusses the structure of Toni Morrison’s Beloved in terms of the model of the ‘phantasm’ based on Jean Laplanche and J.-B. Pontalis’s essay “Fantasme Originaire, fantasmes des origines, origine du fantasme” (translated into English in 1968 as “Fantasy and the origins of sexuality”). The study focuses on the novel’s shifts from the present to the past which work on revising the past experiences through the light of later events, rather than enforcing the reading of the pa...