BELOVEDToni Morrison

Ellen Harris

Toni Morrison ■ Toni Morrison was born on February 18,1931, in Lorain, Ohio.■ She studied English at Howard University and Cornell University,

before teaching English at various universities and working as an editor.

■ She is a Noble Prize- and Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist , editor and professor.

■ Her full name is Chloe Anthony Wofford. She changed her name to Toni when many of her classmates couldn’t pronounce her first name.

■ Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue and richly detailed black characters.

■ She married Harold Morrison in 1958 and had her first child, Harold, in 1961. Slade, their second son, was born in 1964.

■ Morrison left her husband in 1963. ■ Professor at NYU 1984-2006.

Historical Context■ Beloved was written in the early 1980’s.■ The entire novel is inspired by the true story of Margaret

Garner, a slave who escaped with her family across the Ohio River in 1856. Slave catchers found her and her children, she killed her two-year-old daughter, rather than seeing her become a slave.

■ One of the most essential historical elements to understanding Beloved is the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law.

■ The fugitive Slave Law made it illegal for anyone to help or protect slaves that escaped. It allowed southern slaveholders to travel North to reclaim their escaped slaves.

■ Beloved is related to famous American narratives like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

Sethe■ Sethe is a proud and noble woman. She is haunted not only by the ghost

of her dead daughter but also by the memories of her life as a slave. ■ Her escape from Sweet Home shows the force of her will to overcome the

impossible and foreshadows the desperate measures she will take to keep her children out of slavery.

■ Her most remarkable characteristic is her devotion to her children. Unwilling to let her children undergo the trauma that she has endured as a slave, she tries to murder them in an act that she sees as motherly love and protection.

■ She is constantly reminded of her brutal past which leads her to believe that past trauma can never really be forgotten.

■ Throughout the novel, Sethe shows herself to be still enslaved by the past, because she quickly succumbs to Beloved’s demands. Only when she learns to confront the past head-on, can she live freely and peacefully.

Beloved ■ She is the spirit of Sethe’s dead child. ■ Beloved is the age the baby would have been had it lived, and she has the same name as the name

printed on the baby’s tombstone. ■ She first appears to Sethe soaking wet, as though newly born, and Sethe has the sensation of her

water breaking when she sees her. ■ Beloved knows about a pair of earrings Sethe got as a wedding present, she hums a song Sethe

made up for her children, she has a long scar under her chin where her death-wound would be, and her breath smells like milk.

■ Denver is Sethe's daughter. She is shy, intelligent, sensitive and known as the charmed child. ■ She’s eighteen years old, but she acts much younger because she’s scared of the world outside

124. (she hasn’t left the house in 12 years)■ When she feels excluded from her mothers attention she becomes angry. For example, when Paul D

comes to live with them and her mother devotes her energies to him she treats him coldly. ■ By the end of the novel, she is transformed into a strong and independent woman with a new

understanding of her mother.

Denver

Paul D■ Paul D lived at Sweet Home.■ He also suffered horribly, and has reacted by shutting away his deep feelings. ■ He shows up to 124 to try to make a life with Sethe. ■ He becomes Sethe’s lover and the object of Denver and Beloved’s jealousy. ■ Beloved seduces him as a way to drive him and Sethe apart.

■ Baby Suggs is Halle’s mother and Sethe’s mother in law.■ After Halle buys her freedom she becomes a source of emotional and spiritual

inspiration for the black residents of Cincinnati. ■ She holds religious gatherings and teaches her followers to love. After Sethe tries to

kill her children, Baby Suggs stops preaching and she spends her last days in a sickbed. ■ She continued to be an inspiration to the black community after she died.

Baby Suggs

Schoolteacher■ He is in charge of Sweet Home■ He’s cold and racist. He enforces rigid rules and punishment on the

plantation.■ He teaches lessons to his white pupils on the slaves. ■ His nephews held Sethe down and stole her milk while schoolteacher

took notes. When Schoolteacher discovered that Sethe told Mrs. Garner what was done to her, he had one of his nephews whip Sethe, giving her a scar on her back in the shape of a tree.

Themes■ In Morrison’s own terms, the controlling theme of the novel is “how women

negotiate or mediate between their nurturing compulsion to love the other, the thing that’s bigger or better than they are in their lives-husband, children, work-and the other part, which is the individual separate self that has separate obligations.” – I think that motherhood is what saves her from the evil that she goes

through in this novel. Being a mother to her children saves her from the shame and madness that she undergoes. Without her children, Sethe might have gone crazy inside. Instead, she’s protected by the love she has for her children and Paul D.

■ The need for people to deal with their painful pasts in order to heal themselves.– Morrison tells the story of Sethe who escapes slavery but is still desperately

searching for freedom. She sets out to heal her wounds by trying to be a perfect mother. Only when she learns to face the past head on can she live freely and peacefully.

Authors techniques■ Toni Morrison's phrasing is simple. ■ A lot of her language is sensory.

– “They were not holding hands, but their shadows were”. (58) Reading this we could almost see how Paul D, Sethe, and Denver look as they walk down the road.

■ She also uses a lot of symbolism in her writing. The touching shadows could symbolize their growing connection to each other.

■ Refers to Paul D’s heart as a tin box. --This reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. Both Paul D and the Tin Man search for a real heart so that they can feel emotion.

■ She uses unpunctuated sentences to get us to feel unhappy about Beloved.– “some who eat nasty themselves I do not eat we have none at night I cannot

see the dead man on my face daylight comes through the cracks and I can see his locked eyes I am not big small rats do not wait for us to sleep someone is thrashing but there is no room to do it in if we had more to drink we could make tears.

Cont.

■ The point of view shifts between third person omniscient and third person limited.

■ This shift enables the narrator to reveal the thoughts of a character in the language as if he or she would be speaking to us.

■ Her stylistic writing helps you understand and get a feel for each character.

Literary Devices■ ALLITERATION

– “Pool of pulsing red light” – “The water sucked and swallowed itself beneath them.”

■ ANAPHORA– “This here Sethe talked about how like ay other woman; talked about

baby clothes like any other woman, but what she meant could cleave the bone. This here Sethe talked about safety with a handsaw. This here new Sethe didn’t know where the world stopped and she began.”

■ METAPHOR– “The girl who walked down.. Round and brown with the face of an alert

doll.”

■ SIMILE – “her eyes…were like two wells into which he had trouble gazing.” (eyes to

water wells)– “although her voice was as heavy as a man’s, she smelled like a roomful of

flowers.” ( her smell to a room full of flowers)

■ SYMBOLISM– “He wants me to ask him about what it was like… about how offended the

tongue is, held down by iron, how the need to spit is so deep you cry for it…the wildness that was shot up into the eye the moment the lips were yanked back” (71).

■ IMAGERY– “Halle’s Girl- the one with the iron eyes and backbone to match…her eyes

did not pick up a flicker of light. They were like two wells…they needed to be covered, lidded, marked with some sign to warn folks of what the emptiness held” (9).

■ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dw-UV7Odl4

Personal reaction

■ Although this novel was difficult to read, I found it extremely interesting and I really enjoyed it. Her style of writing with flashbacks was confusing for me at first, but as I continued reading I was able to keep the memories straight. This novel was very disturbing at parts but it depicts the hardships of slavery that so many had to undergo and it really opened my eyes.