Surviving What Haunts You: The Art of Invisibility in 'Ceremony,' 'The Ghost Writer,' and 'Beloved.'

Americans are often trapped by the desire to tout their particular cultural identity as a prized possession, while at the same time stripping it of much of its substance. This devaluation of a cultural history is only possible if ethnic identity is something that can be hidden away, made invisible. Yet for some, "The social and political consequences of being Asian or Hispanic or Black are not symbolic for the most part, or voluntary. They are real and often hurtful" (Waters 156). Because of this strain, cultural allegiance becomes a loaded issue for many non-whites. With an acknowledgment of a particular cultural heritage comes a delineation, an enforcement of individuation which is finally at odds with the desire for homogeneity and acceptance that might be called one of the basic American myths. Werner Sollors argues that "The conflicts between descent and consent in American Literature...tell us much about the creation of an American culture out of diverse pre-American pasts" (6), but I would argue that there are writers who take this conflict one step further. Feeling trapped by their "descent" (as Sollors would put it) and unable to forge a contract or a basis for consent, they find themselves not only in conflict, but at war. These writers must struggle with their pasts as with their demons. Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, and Leslie Marmon Silko are members of ethnic groups whose history has been one of repression, if not genocide. These three have marked out a battleground between the visible and invisible worlds and offered up their own version of recreation, a reanimated ghost. In Beloved, The Ghost Writer, and Ceremony, the journey to selfhood is described through the use of the physical rendering of the dead into life. Though African American, Native American, and Jewish-American identities are distinct, evolving from shtetl life or from a rich African or Native American tribal heritage, Morrison, Silko, and Roth have chosen a markedly similar way of making peace with their dead. For each of them, the choice to enlarge upon and engage directly with the spirit world has something to do with one thing these three American ethnic groups share: members of these groups often bear the scars of "survivorship." To be an American is to lay claim to one of the most deceptive of promises. The mythology of America indicates a land of endless prosperity and equality. This version of the "new world" posits America as superhero, offering in the larger frame a repetition of "truth and justice" as "the 'American' way." Yet an analysis of African American, Native American, or even Jewish-American history must call into question this concept of a pacific and tolerant America. With the resurgence of hate groups like the Klan, that lump all non-whites, including Jews, together into a stew of unacceptable and intolerable interlopers, it seems natural to readdress this fundamental deception that is at the basis of any clear definition of what "America" is. Yet, even while deconstructing the myth of parity, it is impossible for those who see themselves as outcasts or victims to completely separate from the promise that they would like to expose and eviscerate. "America," like any superheroic creation, still tempts its citizens to believe in the possibility of regeneration. The vision of a truly "New World," where past and present are able to coexist amiably, haunts these writers. They, like the suburban whites in Mary C. Waters's study, would like an ethnicity which would allow "you to express your individuality in a way that does not make you stand out as in any way different from all other kinds of people" (150). And yet, the punishment, the steamroller effect of history, as well as racial antagonisms that exist all too palpably in the present day, make it impossible for writers who are members of these ethnic groups to achieve this symbiotic and symbolic type of acceptance. The melting pot theory tantalizes and antagonizes them, but the belief that in America even magic is possible and that this is a land of endless promise and possibility where one can reinvent, can remake, the self holds the key to the act of prestidigitation that each one of these writers uses to meld the visible and invisible worlds together. …