American Ghost (Hi)Stories in the Late Novels of Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, and Don DeLillo

This dissertation investigates how history and death are portrayed in the late works of American writers Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, and Don DeLillo. The analysis considers one of the most frequently recurring figures in their novels: the ghost, which can take on various forms and connotations. The main research question is whether and how the “ontology of the ghost,” or hauntology, in the words of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, permeates and defines the fiction of these writers. The focus is on the three writers’ most recent books, beginning with the novels they published at the end of the 1990s wherein we find echoes of the intense theoretical debates on literature, history, death, and ethnicity that defined that decade. After that period, the prominence of death and history, as well as the frequent use of the ghost metaphor, in their writing provides ample evidence of what is commonly referred to as the “spectral turn.” The analysis of the works under consideration aims to show the ways in which postmodern theory influenced and often defined these writers’ poetics, especially in the way they represented personal and collective trauma, the self-reflective act of creating fiction, and their engagement with the American literary tradition. Additionally, it sheds light on their reflections on topics such as race and ethnicity. Despite their distinct tendencies and narratives, Morrison, Roth, and DeLillo are defined by their ethnic and religious heritage. Their African American, Jewish American, and Italian American histories are inseparable from their hauntological viewpoint. The first chapter provides the theoretical, historical, and cultural background which constitutes the foundation of my arguments. I analyze the intricacies of the debate on death and history that culminated in the 1990s. From these premises, I argue that spectrality has become a key element for understanding the postmodern and poststructuralist context. At the end of the first chapter, I present my thesis on “spectral ethnicity,” which aims to shed new light on the complexities of these authors’ works. In the chapter on Morrison, I elaborate on the author’s reflection on and re-functionalization of the Gothic trope of the haunted house, as well as the presence of a spectral voice in her work. Through a close reading of the novels Paradise (1998), Love (2003), and A Mercy (2008). I argue that these spectral features are strongly associated with gender, class, and race. The third chapter is devoted to Philip Roth. Here, I discuss different kinds of ghosts: the literary forefathers who inspired and haunted Roth, such as Henry James and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I argue that these spectral presences helped Roth shape his very own ‘ghostwriter’ – Nathan Zuckerman – a character who, in turn, led Roth to reflect on his ethnicity. The texts I analyze are The Human Stain (2000), Exit Ghost (2007), and Indignation (2008). Lastly, the chapter dedicated to Don DeLillo begins with an investigation of his hidden ethnicity which, I argue, is deeply intertwined with many of the themes he deals with in his works, such as death, technology, and waste. Beginning with Underworld (1997), DeLillo’s fluctuations away from and toward his Italian American upbringing, which appears here and there in his texts, much like a spectral entity, enabled him to embrace American culture and simultaneously analyze its inherent contradictions. The coda addresses DeLillo’s last novel, The Silence (2020), which allows me to reflect on spectrality and demonstrate how ghosts hover in the liminal spaces between presence and absence, visibility and invisibility, materiality and immateriality, voice and silence.