Almost every story includes a physical journey, but how that effects the characters and the overall plot is what makes each story unique. Toni Morrison, the author of "Home", creates a nonstop, optimistic, and heartwarming journey for the characters in her book. Once the long journey is over, an unexpected home is found.
This journey begins in a very segregated area of Texas during the 1950s. The Money family and all their African American neighbors are given an ultimatum: leave in twenty-four hours or be killed. The venture starts as the frantic family and their friends gather what they can and leave, traveling to a destination unknown. They abandon their land, their crops, their livestock, and their furniture. The family has no car, so they must travel with their neighbors, limiting what possessions that can be taken along. To make it even more stressful, the family is stuck in a crowded car, unsure of what's next, with very few of their necessary belongings, and a baby on the way. The journey to escape racism and segregation in Texas is a success, but the future that awaits, is in the hands if God.
Lotus, Georgia is the Money family's next stop of the journey. Here, they came to live with their grandparents, who were not fond of their company. Frank, the Money family's son, and Cee, his younger sister, refer to Lotus as "the worst place in the whole world". Here they spend a significant amount of their childhood with their less than nurturing, grandma, and indifferent grandpa. Their parents are nonexistent as they work to make ends meet working labor-intense, sixteen hour days picking cotton and planting crops. Frank becomes the parent, as he is left to take care of Cee, feeding, disciplining, and nurturing her...
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...s journey is essential in order to portray the pains endured to make it "home". The constant moving from Texas to Georgia to Korea to a psychiatric ward and ultimately back to Georgia, is what makes the story so grabbing and moving. After all the relocations and struggles are endured throughout their lives, Frank and Cee realize that, as long as they are together, Lotus, Georgia is their true home. People say that life is bitter-sweet, and that pain and misery must be felt before joy and laughter. For this family, it took being terrorized out of their home in Texas, forced to live in unwanted circumstances in Georgia, surviving the Korean War, suffering with PTSD in a psychiatric ward, and rescuing his sister from a near death experience, to find "home". The physical journey is what sets stories apart, and Morrison was able to create an unforgettable one.
In the book, “Eleven Seconds” by Travis Roy, he talks about himself about what had happened to him during his hockey game and how he got injured in his hockey game. Roy becomes part of, and moves on from, many different “homes”. All the different homes remain significant throughout his life. Even though these different places are not permanent homes, he experiences a sense of home that remains important to him. Here are three examples of the “homes” Travis Roy becomes part of and how each of them had such an enduring influence on him. Those three “homes” Roy finds significant in his life are, Maine, Boston, and Shepherd Center.
The Arizona atmosphere was visibly different in both literal and nonliteral ways from Kentucky. Taylor’s lifestyle would have been drastically contrasting with how she thrived in her new home of Tucson. Apart from having a night and day experience at maternity, and getting a fresh start at life on her own, Taylor also met a new group of people who changed her in many ways. Lou Ann, who molded her into a better mother, Mattie, who helped her to overcome fears, Esperanza, though she spoke very little, managed to open Taylor’s eyes the horrors of a life she would never have to experience, and finally Turtle, who made Taylor realize what she loved most in life. Pittman, Kentucky did not have any of these individuals to teach the protagonist of this story.
Black Boy tells the story of Richard Wright, a boy growing up in the south and facing innumerable struggles due to his race and personality. Richard’s goal is to complete school and earn enough money to move north for a better life. At home, he is constantly facing verbal and physical abuse from his aunt, uncle, and grandmother. Richard’s best
Toni Morrison's Beloved Throughout the novel Beloved, there are numerous and many obvious reoccurring themes and symbols. While the story is based off of slavery and the aftermath of the horrible treatment of the slaves, it also breaches the subject of the supernatural. It almost seems like the novel itself is haunted. It is even named after the ghost. To further the notion of hauntings, the characters are not only haunted by Beloved at 124, but they are haunted by their past, and the novel is not only about ridding their home of the ghost, but releasing their hold on what had happened to them in worse times.
There is the escape from reality, a low level job, and a way of life, in general. Each character is very relatable simply because so many people, in real life, are not happy with the way their lives are or seem to be turning out. “Mountain climbers don’t carry bricks”-Zig Ziglar. Sometimes one has to be selfish to better his or her situation. Laura wants to escape the fact that she is different and others don’t understand her. Amanda spends her time regretting her choice to marry Laura and Tom’s father who she blames for her current circumstances. She really wants her children to be happy, but maybe should spend more time thinking about what to say next. Jim has a reasonable desire for escape; a little more money, a little less work. Tom is beyond dissatisfied but wants to be responsible, but also seemingly envies his father’s escape and leaving him to be the man of the house. Williams likes to use bird imagery in his writing. Birds can symbolize freedom. They can go as they please and never look back. Tom leaves everything behind and finally escapes in the
Trauma: an emotional shock causing lasting and substantial damage to a person’s psychological development. Linda Krumholz in the African American Review claims the book Beloved by Toni Morrison aids the nation in the recovery from our traumatic history that is blemished with unfortunate occurrences like slavery and intolerance. While this grand effect may be true, one thing that is absolute is the lesson this book preaches. Morrison’s basic message she wanted the reader to recognize is that life happens, people get hurt, but to let the negative experiences overshadow the possibility of future good ones is not a good way to live. Morrison warns the reader that sooner or later you will have to choose between letting go of the past or it will forcibly overwhelm you. In order to cement to the reader the importance of accepting one’s personal history, Morrison uses the tale of former slave Sethe to show the danger of not only holding on to the past, but to also deny the existence and weight of the psychological trauma it poses to a person’s psyche. She does this by using characters and their actions to symbolize the past and acceptance of its existence and content.
...e a similar pattern on their plot. That is, the plot follows the trajectory home-departure from home-adventure-return home. These authors try to emphasize on the fantasy world and gives the protagonist a choice, a choice of choosing the real world vs the fantasy world. However, in all the novels, the protagonists choose to come back to the real world. The return of the home is a sign of change in the protagonist. The return to the real world shows that the protagonist is more mature and it shows that the protagonists are more self-confident, knowledgeable, and adjusted individual. Although Children`s literature can deal with death, sadness and uncomfortable issues similarly to how adult literature deals with those issues. Although Children`s literature can deal with death, sadness and uncomfortable issues similarly to how adult literature deals with those issues.
“Adversity defines the essence of who we are and who we desire to be!” This can be best realized in the rural southern regions of the United States during the late 19 forties and early fifties. Without a specific location of long-term concentration, this story finds three generations of a family taking a vacation (planning at least) to Florida despite objections from the grandmother. Factor in her impatient son (Bailey), his wife, and two smart-ass children have marginal respect for their grandmother resulting in a crew of authoritative, uncertainty, distant, and manipulative people about to engage on a trip that ends with certain doom for all with a twist indicative of self preservation and ironic irritation.
In the story, “Recitatif,” Toni Morrison uses vague signs and traits to create Roberta and Twyla’s racial identity to show how the characters relationship is shaped by their racial difference. Morrison wants the reader’s to face their racial preconceptions and stereotypical assumptions. Racial identity in “Recitatif,” is most clear through the author’s use of traits that are linked to vague stereotypes, views on racial tension, intelligence, or ones physical appearance. Toni Morrison provides specific social and historical descriptions of the two girls to make readers question the way that stereotypes affect our understanding of a character. The uncertainties about racial identity of the characters causes the reader to become pre-occupied with assigning a race to a specific character based merely upon the associations and stereotypes that the reader creates based on the clues given by Morrison throughout the story. Morrison accomplishes this through the relationship between Twyla and Roberta, the role of Maggie, and questioning race and racial stereotypes of the characters. Throughout the story, Roberta and Twyla meet throughout five distinct moments that shapes their friendship by racial differences.
A physical journey occurs as a direct result of travelling from one place to another over land, sea or even space. The physical journey can occur individually or collectively, but always involves more than mere movement. Instead physical journeys are accompanied by inner growth and development, catalysed by the experiences and the decisions that impact the outcome of the journey. These journey concepts and the interrelationship between physical and emotional journeys is exemplified in the text; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, the children’s book Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and the film Stand By Me directed by Rob Reiner.
If ignorance is bliss, then why is it human nature to uncover the truth? In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the character Denver uses knowledge to feed her craving in hopes that it will fill the void her mother unsuccessfully tried to satisfy with the blood of the past and too little milk. To understand these truths one must accept that Beloved is a physical representation of the past, Sethe embodies the present, and Denver exemplifies the future. Throughout the novel these three characters interact on a superficial level, but each action has a deeper underlying influence on the other. This is why Denver’s assumed motive of using the attachment she forged with Beloved to develop a closer relationship with Sethe is cursory. When in fact it was for fear of her own life, that Denver’s intended to extract the information from Beloved, of what triggered Sethe to kill killed her.
Cruelty is the idea of gaining pleasures in harming others and back in 1873, many African American slaves suffered from this common ideology according Heather Andrea Williams of National Humanities Center Fello. Toni Morrison, an African American author who illustrates an opportunity for “readers to be kidnapped, thrown ruthlessly into an alien environment...without preparations or defense” (Morrison) in her award-winning novel Beloved as method to present how cruel slavery was for African Americans. In her fictional story, Beloved, Morrison explained the developement of an African American slave named Sethe who willingly murdered her own child to prevent it from experiencing the cruel fate of slavery. Nonetheless, Morrison
So often, the old adage, "History always repeats itself," rings true due to a failure to truly confront the past, especially when the memory of a period of time sparks profoundly negative emotions ranging from anguish to anger. However, danger lies in failing to recognize history or in the inability to reconcile the mistakes of the past. In her novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison explores the relationship between the past, present and future. Because the horrors of slavery cause so much pain for slaves who endured physical abuse as well as psychological and emotional hardships, former slaves may try to block out the pain, failing to reconcile with their past. However, when Sethe, one of the novel's central characters fails to confront her personal history she still appears plagued by guilt and pain, thus demonstrating its unavoidability. Only when she begins to make steps toward recovery, facing the horrors of her past and reconciling them does she attain any piece of mind. Morrison divides her novel into three parts in order to track and distinguish the three stages of Sethe approach with dealing with her personal history. Through the character development of Sethe, Morrison suggests that in order to live in the present and enjoy the future, it is essential to reconcile the traumas of the past.
In the article “Kinds of Blues: Toni Morrison, Hans Janowitz, and the Jazz Aesthetic” by Jürgen E. Grandt, claims that non-African American writers can imitate Jazz from there reading, the invention of jazz- based on their reading techniques belongs to African Americans. At the beginning the article informs us that in the year 1951 there was a jazz critic named Leonard Feather, that believed white and black Jazz musician had different styles and that they can be distinguished by how they play Jazz. So, he came up with a test, which the results made him realized that his belief was wrong, because he wasn’t able to tell who was colored and who was white. It also talks about the comparison of two novel both of which contain the title “Jazz”.
Looked at the most successful black author of them all, Toni Morrison is the first most successful black author there ever was. Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio. She started writing a novel every time her boys fell asleep. She is now known for writing novels with epic themes, detailed characters and brilliant dialogue. Toni Morrison is an amazing author with an amazing story to be told.