Animist Imaginary and "Abiku" Representation: Reconstruction of Cultural Identity and Cultural Root-seeking in Beloved.

Beloved presents the strategies of reconstruction of cultural identity and cultural rootseeking of African Americans. Toni Morrison presented the cultural trauma of African Americans with memory, constructing the characteristics of collective identity of African Americans, and used African animist imaginary as a cultural strategy to encode cultural trauma, depicting the cultural uniqueness in the cultural identity of African Americans. In addition, Morrison's introduction of the ghost child "abiku" in African animism belief into the novel, connecting history and reality through the representation of ghost, is not only an exploration of cultural trauma of African Americans, but also a reconstruction of the cultural psychology of the African Americans, contributing to their cultural identity. Morrison's strategies of constructing the cultural identity in Beloved not only strengthened the cultural consciousness of the nation, but also explored the cultural roots of the African Americans by depicting trauma through memory, encoding trauma through culture, and reconstructing national cultural psychology through representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]