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.
“I am full…of two boys with mossy teeth, one sucking on my breast the other holding me down, their book-reading teacher watching and writing it up” (Morrison 70). This chilling quote refers to the scene in which Sethe is essentially robbed of everything she owns. Ironically, the boys with the mossy teeth had the civility to dig a hole for Sethe’s stomach “as not to hurt the baby” (202). However, such a violent act could not occur without a reaction. This scene sets the rest of the story in motion.
In an interview, Morrison is asked about her feelings on O.J. Simpson. This brings up the issue of “black irrationality”. She chuckles and responds “The story of the case is a marketable story. And that story is made up of black irrationality, and black cunning, and black stupidity, and the black predator” (Haines). She then continues with this memorable quote, “We've always been considered to be irrational, emotional, lunatic people.” In Beloved, Sethe portrays the epitome of “bla...
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...to support the book’s theme of a woman in search for herself and sense of personal value. Forgiving one’s self, coping with the past, and learning from mistakes are ubiquitous and timeless lessons to be learned for all people. Beloved, as well as several other works by Morrison, will continue to be a vastly entertaining ghost story as well as a genuinely heart-touching novel.
Works Cited
Haines, Chris. "Salon | The Salon Interview: Toni Morrison." Salon.com - Salon.com. 02 Feb. 1998. 7 Mar. 2011 .
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.
Rothstein, Mervyn. "Toni Morrison, In Her New Novel, Defends Women." Rev. of Beloved. New York Times 26 Aug. 1987, Final ed., sec. C: 17. The New York Times Book Review. New York Times. 7 Mar. 2011 .
Morrison, Toni. Introduction. Birth of a Nation'hood. Ed. Toni Morrison and Claudia Brodsky Lacour. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997. 7-28.
Parker, Emma. "A New Hystery: History and Hysteria in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Twentieth Century Literature 47.1 (2001): 1. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
Stories written in our present time about slavery in the eighteen-hundreds are often accepted as good accounts of history. However, Toni Morrison’s Beloved cannot be used to provide a good chronicle in the history of slavery. While writing about black female slaves and how they were the most oppressed of the most oppressed, Toni Morrison, herself as a female black writer, has a very bias view, as seen by many others. Beloved is written in a completely nonlinear fashion that makes it very difficult to view as a good account of history; the jumping around that it goes through makes it very difficult to place oneself into the story. Due to this jumping around that the book proceeds through, multiple viewpoints are easily created which completely derail the reader from the actual truth of what really happened. In many cases, Beloved does not show sign of what a true history would entail, as understood in the articles and essays of many.
Toni saw this opportunity to write this particular article into a novel to show people how the days of slavery were and the sacrifices those that had run away would make if they stood a chance to be recaptured. The novel also introduces us to the spirits of the souls that were lost and how they never rested in peace until they finished what they had left behind. Toni really captures the audience’s attention in this particular novel.
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.
Beloved is one of Toni Morrison's most famous novels that was published in 1987 and earned her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year. In it the author vividly displays the horrors and devastating consequences of slavery and honors all the victims by giving them a voice to tell their unembellished side of the history. Although a person’s name plays an important role in the development of one’s identity and self, the names given to the African-American slaves by their masters were only one of the instruments of oppression and dehumanization they were subjected to that lead to the eventual loss of identity, both individual and collective.
Solomon, Barbara H., ed. "Critical Essays on Toni Morrison's Beloved." New York: G.K. Hall & Co. 1998
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.
The dangerous aspect of Sethe's love is first established with the comments of Paul D regarding her attachment to Denver. At page 54, when Sethe refuses to hear Paul D criticize Denver, he thinks: "Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous( )" he deems Sethe's attachment dangerous because he believes that when "( ) they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack ( )" having such a strong love will prevent her from going on with her life. Paul D's remarks indicate that evidently the loved one of a slave is taken away. Mothers are separated from their children, husbands from their wives and whole families are destroyed; slaves are not given the right to claim their loved ones. Having experienced such atrocities, Paul D realizes that the deep love Sethe bears for her daughter will onl...
Toni Morrison's novel, Beloved, reveals the effects of human emotion and its power to cast an individual into a struggle against him or herself. In the beginning of the novel, the reader sees the main character, Sethe, as a woman who is resigned to her desolate life and isolates herself from all those around her. Yet, she was once a woman full of feeling: she had loved her husband Halle, loved her four young children, and loved the days of the Clearing. And thus, Sethe was jaded when she began her life at 124 Bluestone Road-- she had loved too much. After failing to 'save' her children from the schoolteacher, Sethe suffered forever with guilt and regret. Guilt for having killed her "crawling already?" baby daughter, and then regret for not having succeeded in her task. It later becomes apparent that Sethe's tragic past, her chokecherry tree, was the reason why she lived a life of isolation. Beloved, who shares with Seths that one fatal moment, reacts to it in a completely different way; because of her obsessive and vengeful love, she haunts Sethe's house and fights the forces of death, only to come back in an attempt to take her mother's life. Through her usage of symbolism, Morrison exposes the internal conflicts that encumber her characters. By contrasting those individuals, she shows tragedy in the human condition. Both Sethe and Beloved suffer the devastating emotional effects of that one fateful event: while the guilty mother who lived refuses to passionately love again, the daughter who was betrayed fights heaven and hell- in the name of love- just to live again.
There are two ways of interpreting the killing of Beloved, Sethe could. be seen as saving her, motivated by true love or selfish pride? By Looking at the varying nature of Sethe, it can be said that, she is a. women who choose to love their children but not herself. She kills the baby, because in her mind, her children are the only part of her that has not been soiled by slavery, she refuses to contemplate that by. showing this mercy, she is committing a murder.
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.
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.
Violence appears in many different shapes and forms and in some cases; it is hard to escape violence. As unfortunate as it sounds, everywhere we turn, all around the world, there is a footprint of violence in our society, in our workplace and in our home. There are many homes where parents beat each other and beat their children. There are many places where people are verbally and physically abused by others. There are also many places where racism reigns and people are hurt and violated because of their skin color, religion or gender. In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the author does not only talk about violence, she also shows us how a person confuses love with violence.
Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved is one of many of her works that expose the mistreatment of Blacks in the United States. Growing up in a life of segregation herself, Morrison chooses to circulate her novels to give voice to African American citizens that could not speak up against their own rights during the Jim Crow Era. Morrison has developed a sense of understanding for why racial discrimination occurs, and she does not agree with it, just like any other African American citizen. Her goal of writing is to redirect and reshape the racial standards of society. Set in the 19th century, her novel Beloved is a vivid textual representation of slavery, discrimination, and deprivation. Throughout her novel, Morrison often includes different images of trees, both in positive and negative manners. These different examples of trees give room for different interpretations and understandings, but ultimately, it is evident that throughout the novel,