A White-Supremacist Eden In Toni Morrison's Beloved

810 Words2 Pages

Cosca, David. "Is 'Hell A Pretty Place'? A White-Supremacist Eden in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Interdisciplinary Humanities 30.2 (2013): 9-23. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.
In this article, Cosca offers a comparison between Toni Morrison’s Beloved and the story of the Garden of Eden: stating that the book is a re-imagining of the biblical text. The main characters who are almost exclusively black, attempt to understand themselves in a world that does not recognize them as humans. For that reason, Cosca states that Beloved is about the “forbidden knowledge of good and evil.” A fundamental focus is centered on the need to procreate wherein Morrison uses several allusions to Eden in order to describe the sexual desires that will produce offspring. By passing down their racist ideas, the parents will corrupt the next generation. The dissemination of knowledge for both black and white characters in the novel is identified as a theme which is extensively emphasized. …show more content…

The article suggests that the novel “challenges the notion that the end of institutional slavery brings about freedom.” Krumholz uses logical arguments to support her ideas when explaining that the characters are depicted as having to cope with the “emotional and psychological scars of slavery as well as the persistence of racism.” The article clearly articulates Krumholz’s perspectives on the character of Beloved and the symbolism surrounding her, however Krumholz does not additionally explore the symbolism associated with other characters, leaving the reader with an incomplete understanding. Although the source is useful for its specific background of Beloved as “the forgotten spirit of the past that must “be loved” even if it is unlovable and elusive,” this work does not fully address how freedom is

Show More
Related

  • Themes And Cruelty In Toni Morrison's Beloved

    1274 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell” (Francois Mauriac, Brainyquote 2016). These statements posed by French novelist Francois Mauriac can be applied to Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The novel centers around Sethe, a former African American slave, who lives in rural Cincinnati, Ohio with her daughter named Denver. As the plot progresses, Sethe is confronted with elements of her haunting past: traumatic experiences from her life as a slave, her daunting escape, and the measures she took to keep her family safe from her hellish owner plague Sethe into the present and force her to come to terms with the past. A definitive theme

    Read More

  • Toni Morrison and Beloved

    2628 Words  | 6 Pages

    Gates, Henry Louis and Appiah, K. A.  (eds.).  Toni Morrison:  Critical Perspectives Past and Present.  New York, Amistad, 1993.

    Read More

  • Toni Morrison's Beloved - Appropriate for High School Students

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    Beloved is a novel which digs deeply into the lives of four, post-Civil War, African American people. The novel has many things which could be deemed unacceptable but it is necessary to read as high school students in order to expand our views on life as we know it. The novel may have some idiosyncratic issues but they are unfortunately things that occur in our modern day world.

    Read More

  • Family Life, Mother-Daughter Relationship, and Psychological Impact from Slavery in Toni Morrison’s, Beloved

    544 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jesser, Nancy. "Violence, Home, and Community in Toni Morrison's 'Beloved.'." African American Review 33.2 (1999): 325+. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Love In Toni Morrison's Beloved

    1585 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, love proves to be a dangerous and destructive force. Upon learning that Sethe killed her daughter, Beloved, Paul D warns Sethe “Your love is too thick” (193). Morrison proved this statement to be true, as Sethe’s intense passion for her children lead to the loss of her grasp on reality. Each word Morrison chose is deliberate, and each sentence is structured with meaning, which is especially evident in Paul D’s warning to Sethe. Morrison’s use of the phrase “too thick”, along with her short yet powerful sentence structure make this sentence the most prevalent and important in her novel. This sentence supports Paul D’s side on the bitter debate between Sethe and he regarding the theme of love. While Sethe asserts that the only way to love is to do so passionately, Paul D cites the danger in slaves loving too much. Morrison uses a metaphor comparing Paul D’s capacity to love to a tobacco tin rusted shut. This metaphor demonstrates how Paul D views love in a descriptive manner, its imagery allowing the reader to visualize and thus understand Paul D’s point of view. In this debate, Paul D proves to be right in that Sethe’s strong love eventually hurts her, yet Paul D ends up unable to survive alone. Thus, Morrison argues that love is necessary to the human condition, yet it is destructive and consuming in nature. She does so through the powerful diction and short syntax in Paul D’s warning, her use of the theme love, and a metaphor for Paul D’s heart.

    Read More

  • Use of Violence in Beloved by Toni Morrison

    675 Words  | 2 Pages

    As much as society does not want to admit, violence serves as a form of entertainment. In media today, violence typically has no meaning. Literature, movies, and music, saturated with violence, enter the homes of millions everyday. On the other hand, in Beloved, a novel by Toni Morrison, violence contributes greatly to the overall work. The story takes place during the age of the enslavement of African-Americans for rural labor in plantations. Sethe, the proud and noble protagonist, has suffered a great deal at the hand of schoolteacher. The unfortunate and seemingly inevitable events that occur in her life, fraught with violence and heartache, tug at the reader’s heart-strings. The wrongdoings Sethe endures are significant to the meaning of the novel.

    Read More

  • Toni Morrison's Use Of Narrative Voice In Beloved

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel Beloved, the past lingers on. The novel reveals to readers the terrors of slavery and how even after slavery had ended, its legacy drove people to commit horrific actions. This truth demonstrates how the past stays with us, especially in the case of Sethe and Paul D. The story focuses on previous slaves Paul D and Sethe, as well as Sethe’s daughters Denver and Beloved, who are all troubled by the past. Although both Paul D and Sethe are now free they are chained to the unwanted memories of Sweet Home and those that precede their departure from it. The memories of the horrific past manifest themselves physically as Beloved, causing greater pains that are hard to leave behind and affect the present. In the scene soon after Beloved arrives at 124 Bluestone, Sethe's conversation with Paul D typifies Morrison’s theme of how the past is really the present as well. Morrison is able to show this theme of past and present as one through her metaphors and use of omniscient narration.

    Read More

  • Themes in Song Of Solomon

    2108 Words  | 5 Pages

    Samuels, Wilfred D., and Clenora Hudson- Weems. Toni Morrison. New York, NY: Twayne Publishers, 1990. 53-78. Print.

    Read More

  • Color as a Symbol and Symbolism in Toni Morrison's Beloved

    1834 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Beloved, Toni Morrison portrays the barbarity and cruelty of slavery. She emphasizes the African American’s desire for a new life as they try to escape their past while claiming their freedom and creating a sense of community.  In Beloved, "Much of the characters’ pain occurs as they reconstruct themselves, their families, and their communities after the devastation of slavery" (Kubitschek 115). Throughout the novel, Morrison uses color to symbolically represent a life complete with happiness, freedom, and safety, as well as involvement in community and family. In many scenes, Morrison uses color to convey a character's desire for such a life; while, in other instances, Morrison utilizes color to illustrate the satisfaction and fulfillment, which the characters experience once they achieve this life.

    Read More

  • Religion in "Beloved"

    829 Words  | 2 Pages

    Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, explores the physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering that was brought on by slavery. Several critical works recognize that Morrison incorporates aspects of traditional African religions and to Christianity to depict the anguish slavery placed not only on her characters, but other enslaved African Americans. This review of literature will explore three different scholarly articles that exemplifies how Morrison successfully uses African religions and Christianity to depict the story of how slavery affected the characters’ lives in the novel, even after their emancipation from slavery.

    Read More

  • Toni Morrison

    1926 Words  | 4 Pages

    Mobley, Marilyn Sanders. “ Toni Morrison.” The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith, and Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford UP, 1997.508-510.

    Read More

  • Character of Beloved in Toni Morrison's Beloved

    2498 Words  | 5 Pages

    Perhaps one of the most important issues in Toni Morrison's award-winning novel Beloved is Morrison's intentional diversity of possible interpretations. However the text is looked at and analyzed, it is the variety of these multiple meanings that confounds any simple interpretation and gives the novel the complexity. The debate rages on over many topics, but one issue of central and basic importance to the understanding of the novel is defining the different possibilities for interpreting the title character. As Robert Broad recognizes, "the question, "Who the hell is Beloved?" must haunt the reader of the novel," and the reader must come to some basic understanding of her character to appreciate the difficult stream of consciousness sections (Broad 189). But there may be no "basic" understanding available of Beloved, for she is a character that ostensibly refuses any single identity, either literal or symbolic.

    Read More

  • Universal Themes in Toni Morrison’s Beloved

    969 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, Morrison uses universal themes and characters that anyone can relate to today. Set in the 1800s, Beloved is about the destructive effects of American slavery. Most destructive in the novel, however, is the impact of slavery on the human soul. Morrison’s Beloved highlights how slavery contributes to the destruction of one’s identity by examining the importance of community solidarity, as well as the powers and limits of language during the 1860s.

    Read More

  • Slavery in Beloved, by Toni Morrison

    1972 Words  | 4 Pages

    Beloved “Beloved” is the story of a young black woman's escape from slavery in the nineteenth century, and the process of adjusting to a life of freedom. Most people associate slavery with shackles, chains, and back-breaking work. What they do not realize the impact of the psychological and emotional bondage of slavery. In order for a slave to be truly free, they had to escape physically first, and once that. was accomplished they had to confront the horror of their actions and the memories. that life in chains had left behind.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Slavery In Toni Morrison's Beloved

    869 Words  | 2 Pages

    Beloved by Toni Morrison is a novel that serves as an epitome of society during and post-slavery. Morrison uses symbolism to convey the legacy that slavery has had on those that were unlucky enough to come into contact with it. The excerpt being explicated reflects the fashion in which slavery was disregarded and forgotten; pressing on the fact that it was forgotten at all.

    Read More

More about A White-Supremacist Eden In Toni Morrison's Beloved

Open Document