The "Trick" of narratives : history, memory, and performance in Toni Morrison's Paradise

The oral or folkloric sign, which is an integral part of Toni Morrison's aesthetic, once again becomes a crucial aspect of her latest work. Morrison's Paradise is an imaginative discourse on the oral-written interface in African American culture. In earlier novels such as Song of Solomon and Beloved, memory is the interpretive sign. In Paradise, however, memory is interrogated as Morrison presents a slice of African American experience centered on the (ab)use of memory.Not