Beloved: Passage Analysis

Chapter sixteen of Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, is told from the perspective of the four horsemen: the schoolteacher, schoolteacher’s son, sheriff, and slave catcher. These four horsemen symbolize the four horsemen of the apocalypse from the Bible, exemplifying the horrors of slavery and how this episode is the only time the novel is told from a white person's perspective. When the four horsemen arrive at the shed, they see Sethe holding a blood-soaked child to her chest and Denver, an infant, by the heels. The schoolteacher believes that Sethe had “gone wild” since his nephew had “overbeat her” (149). Sethe will never be the same person as she was before: she has transformed into an over-beaten hound after the schoolteacher’s nephew sucked the milk from her breast. Although Sethe’s love for her children is what drove her to kill her child, what the schoolteacher sees is chaos; Sethe was not suited to return to Sweet Home. Since Sethe’s children were dead, or nearly dead, the schoolteacher believes that they are useless, which ultimately saves

In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison spins an intricate web between names and numbers for the reader to unravel. The deep connection that lies between names and numbers is a direct correspondence to the identity and worth of black people during slavery. Beloved begins with the identity of the house which is characterized by a number. The house is given a temperament as if it is a living, breathing entity and yet it still referred to as a number. The significance of this is symbolic to the plight of the black slaves. Regarded as little above the common animal, slaves were defined by their selling price, essentially they were reduced to a number. Viewed as nonbeings they nevertheless feel and suffer their place in the south. The character Beloved is similar in this regard as well. All that defines her is an age and a name that remains unfluctuating through time. In an insufferable and cruel world, names and numbers play a critical role in understanding the identity of black existence in the South. To uncover the implications and nuances that names and numbers play will be instrumental to delving into the lives of black slaves. Beloved contains a vast amount of names and numbers and the connections between them deepen the novel and provide mammoth insight into understanding and interpreting Morrison’s work and purpose for juxtaposing such elaborate bonds between names and numbers.

is a firm believer that too much love is bad for a person. In order to keep his brutal past behind him, he believes that one should only love a little. After Sweet Home, Paul D. attempts to kill his new owner and is forced into a chain-gang in which he is performs oral sex on white men. He realizes that even a rooster has more importance than him to white men. He has trouble committing to a woman who offers him shelter and eventually finds himself at 124, where he discovers Sethe’s overwhelming love and madness and Beloved’s presence. He keeps his memories and feelings in a rusted tobacco tin. When Beloved has sex with him, possibly in a vision or dream, the past comes rushing back to him. “He didn’t hear the whisper that the flakes of rust made either as they fell away from the seams of his tobacco tin. So when the lid gave he didn’t know it. What he knew was that when he reached the inside part he was saying, ‘Red heart. Red heart,’ over and over again” and then wakes himself up with his screaming (138). Beloved is both Sethe’s daughter and a symbol for the past generations of slaves. She opens Paul D. to love again, a cruelty in an already cruel world. Keeping love at bay has helped Paul D. and others like Ella feel safe from their pasts. At the end of the novel, when Beloved is gone, Paul D. goes back to 124 to help Sethe. Morrison shows the human capacity to love after so much has been taken or removed from the human

Lester Horton has been named, as one of the many founders of modern dance, whose style continues to be used in present day choreography. Although Hortons’ early technique was impacted by his interest in various cultures; his style eventually shifted towards a more theatrical technique. Horton used his versatile dance background and interests to develop the sub genre under modern dance, more formally known as choreodramas. His technique seen in earlier pieces and choreodramas such as “The Beloved” and “Salome” were effective in displaying the purpose of Horton’s style. Horton integrated his background in dance, props, costumes, and choreography to emphasize contemporary ideas and display the new genre of choreodramas.

20-27.What do Paul D and Sethe remember about Sweet Home? Why do you think Morrison gives us the information bit by little bit?

The novel Beloved is a work of literature so compelling, readers must allow themselves to submit to the author’s literary genius in order to understand her message. Toni Morrison destroys the barrier that is censorship in African American history by giving account to real life events through fiction. The novel is raw and uncut, and leaves the reader with a new perspective on society. Morrison acts as an advocate for racial and social equality, and the importance of accurately represented history. She also explores gender perspectives and the roots of humanity itself. Morrison’s use of symbolism is, although bold, subtly powerful and gripping. These symbols in the text give dimension to the characters and allow

Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Beloved, is a historical novel that serves as a memorial for those who died during the perils of slavery. The novel serves as a voice that speaks for the silenced reality of slavery for both men and women. Morrison in this novel gives a voice to those who were denied one, in particular African American women. It is a novel that rediscovers the African American experience. The novel undermines the conventional idea of a story’s time scheme. Instead, Morrison combines the past and the present together. The book is set up as a circling of memories of the past, which continuously reoccur in the book. The past is embedded in the present, and the present has no

Morrison captivates the audience and communicates the enduring effects of slavery on society through the use of setting. Throughout the novel, Morrison constantly changes the setting and alters the natural order of time. For example, in the very beginning of the novel, Paul D arrives at 124 and stirs up the past. As Morrison writes, “‘Eighteen years,’ [Sethe] said softly. ‘Eighteen,’ [Paul D] repeated.” (8) After Paul D enters 124, he immediately reminds Sethe of their past that happened eighteen years ago. As soon as Morrison begins the novel, the audience is interested by and confused by the characters’ rich backstory due to the oddity of a novel beginning in the present only to explain the past. Usually it is best to avoid confusing the

Beloved is a novel by Toni Morrison based on slavery after the Civil War in the year 1873, and the hardships that come with being a slave. This story involves a runaway captive named Sethe, who commits a heinous crime to protect her child from the horrors of slavery. Through her traumas, Sethe runs from the past and tries to live a normal life. The theme of Toni Morrison’s story Beloved is how people cannot escape the past. Every character relates their hard comings to the past through setting, character development, and conflict.

Sethe and her friends and family both witness and experience the atrocious institutionalized wrongs and unethical societal norms of slave culture. However, Sethe eventually escapes Sweet Home plantation, hoping to provide a better life for her and her children. She finds a home at 124 Bluestone Road with her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs. Like Sethe, Paul D escapes Sweet Home, but he subsequently suffers jail time and further mistreatment. Morrison explains how slavery destroyed Paul D’s ability to love and express himself, “Saying more might push them both to a place they couldn’t get back from. He would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut” (Morrison 86). The metaphorical replacement of Paul D’s heart with a rusted tobacco tin illustrates how slavery removed a human quality from him, almost giving him attributes of a machine rather than a person. Slave owners, Mr. Garner and Schoolteacher, reduced Paul D to a worker without a heart. However, Paul D finds an escape from this with Sethe at

Beloved, like many of the other books we have read, has to deal with the theme of isolation. There was the separation of Sethe and Denver from the rest of the world. There was also, the loneliness of each main character throughout the book. There were also other areas of the book where the idea of detachment from something was obvious. People’s opinions about the house made them stay away and there was also the inner detachment of Sethe from herself. The theme that Toni Morrison had in mind when the book was written was isolation.

After reading Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, I could not help but feel shocked and taken aback by the detailed picture of life she painted for slaves at the time in American history. The grotesque and twisted nature of life during the era of slavery in America is an opposite world from the politically correct world of 2016. Morrison did not hold back about the harsh realities of slavery. Based on a true story, Toni Morrison wrote Beloved about the life of Sethe, a slave and her family. Toni Morrison left no stone unturned when describing the impact slavery on had the life of slaves. She dove deeper than the surface level of simply elaborating on how terrible it is to be “owned” and forced to do manual labor. Morrison describes in detail, the horrors and profoundly negative impacts slavery had on family bonds, humanity of all people involved and the slaves sense of self even after they acquired their freedom.

Hook. In the book Beloved by Toni Morrison and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, the theme: Identity Results from the release of Repression through metaphors when Paul D talks about the tobacco tin, when Emily holds on to her father’s death, and both of them holding onto their past. When Paul D and Beloved get together his hypothetical tobacco tin is opened and he becomes humanized which allows him to develop his identity. When Emily’s father dies she holds onto his corpse and is unable to let the physical symbol of her past move on. Even though one symbol was physical and the other was hypothetical they were both willing to do what they needed to repress their past. With this in mind it is important to first discuss, the metaphor

 Toni Morrison’s powerful novel Beloved is based on the aftermath of slavery and the horrific burden of slavery’s hidden sins.  Morrison chooses to depict the characters that were brutalized in the life of slavery as strong-willed and capable of overcoming such trauma.  This is made possible through the healing of many significant characters, especially Sethe.  Sethe is relieved of her painful agony of escaping Sweet Home as well as dealing with pregnancy with the help of young Amy Denver and Baby Suggs.  Paul D’s contributions to the symbolic healing take place in the attempt to help her erase the past.  Denver plays the most significant role in Sethe’s healing in that she brings the community’s support

In Beloved, Toni Morrison frequently alternates between telling stories from Sethe's past, to telling events in the present. Morrison introduces Beloved, who serves as the link between Sethe and Paul D's past at "Sweet Home" as slaves, and the present, living in Ohio as a free family of three: Sethe, Paul D. and Denver. The character of Beloved allows Morrison to explain the experiences and characteristics of the three characters, and how they are reactions to their pasts. Up to Beloved's arrival, Sethe and Denver lived in a "spiteful house.", which created a state of uneasiness. The ghost of Beloved had driven off Sethe's two sons, yet the mother and daughter continued to live at 124. With the arrival of Paul D., some of Sethe's