How The Past Affects the Present in Toni Morrison's Beloved

Toni Morrison is one of the most prominent writers within the Post-Aesthetic movement (Napierkowski).

Mirroring their increased presence in politics, African Americans also became highly visible as writers during the 1960s. Harlem Renaissance writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston had been prominent in the 1920s, while Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison achieved both literary and popular acclaim in the 1940s and 1950s. Many of these works were popular because of the way they

were able to interpret the black experience for a white audience. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, writers within the "Black Aesthetic Movement" attempted to produce works of art that would be meaningful to the black masses.

Writers such as Amiri Baraka, Haki R. Madhubuti, and Sonia Sanchez created works which highlighted the disparity between blacks and whites and affirmed the value of African-American culture, thus creating a sense of pride and identity in the black community.In the late 1970s and 1980s, however, many African-American writers chose a slightly different approach. Instead of focusing on the differences between blacks and whites in America—and thus placing themselves within or against a white social context—these "Post-Aesthetic" writers used a wholly African-American context for their work(Napiekowski npg).

By Morrison focusing on families and communities, Beloved is an example of literary movement (Napieerkowski npg). The setting of novel starts the state of Ohio in a house on 124 Bluestone Road. Morrison’s book Beloved the past plays a role in how the characters are effect in the present. Morrison uses memory and reminiscences to show the characters, Sethe, Denver, and Beloved struggled with remembering memories.” The me...

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... Library. Web. 13 Nov. 2011.

Denard, Carolyn C. "Morrison, Toni 1931-." Modern American Women Writers. Ed. Elaine Showalter, Lea Baechler, and A. Walton Litz. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1991. 317-338. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.

Elizabeth House, "Toni Morrison's Ghost: The Beloved Who Is Not Beloved," inStudies in American Fiction, Vol. 18, No. 1, Spring, 1990, pp. 17-26.

Morrison,Toni.Beloved.New York: Knopf, 1987.

Toutonghi, Pauls Harijs. "Toni Morrison’s Beloved." American Writers Classics. Ed. Jay Parini. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003. 19-33. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

Dehnkubitschek, Missy Dehn. Toni Morrison A Critical Companion. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998. 115-137.

Marsh,Thomas. "Filling in the Gaps: the Fictional World of Toni Morrison". Bloom 39-60.