Light And Darkness In Toni Morrison's Beloved

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.

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

Through the common slave narrative motif of exposing physical and emotional abuse of slaves, Douglass showcases the exploitation and dehumanization of slaves by their masters, arousing readers’ sympathy and strengthening the humanitarian cause behind abolitionism. Douglass describes how the slaves received a scanty allowance of inadequate clothes and bedding each year, wiring that “When these failed them, [slaves] went naked until the next allowance-day” --a fact illustrated by the description that “children...almost naked, might be seen at all seasons of the year” (48). Deprived of such basic comforts, Douglass reveals how the masters stripped autonomy away from their slaves and dehumanizing, highlighting that not only were they used as

The past comes back to haunt accurately in Beloved. Written by Toni Morrison, a prominent African-American author and Noble Prize winner for literature, the novel Beloved focuses on Sethe, a former slave who killed her daughter, Beloved, before the story begins. Beloved returns symbolically in the psychological issues of each character and literally in human form. The novel is inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner, a slave in the 1850s, who committed infanticide by killing her child. Barbara Schapiro, the author of “The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison’s Beloved”, Andrew Levy, the author of “Telling Beloved”, and Karla F.C. Holloway, the author of “Beloved: A Spiritual”, present ideas of the loss of psychological freedom, the story being “unspeakable”, Beloved being the past, and the narrative structures of the story rewriting history.

Accordingly, harsh punishments were enacted if anyone was caught teaching a slave how to read. In turn, slave owners created a society where “It was dangerous to educate slaves” because “education made blacks dissatisfied with slavery” (236). This illustrates the immense power of knowledge as only an educated slave could discover an alternate world to slavery, which is exemplified with the use of the word “dissatisfied”. Slave owners recognize this power by ruthlessly attempting to keep the value of education away from their slaves despite their physical control over them. In addition, it was considered “dangerous to keep a [educated] slave” as they might “run away and [you would] lose your investment” manifesting the idea that only barrier standing in the way of slave from freedom is education (80). This illuminates that the power that emanates from the “whip” can’t suppress an educated slave as it exclusively relies on fear, but once educated there no longer exists the reason to fear. Moreover, the slave owners fear that they would lose their “investment”, portraying the idea that the slave owners can’t control their slaves through physical power. For example, Margaret and her husband “resent [Dana]” due to their “[lack of] education”, which is why “educated slaves aren’t popular” (80). Thus, Tom Weylin only despises educated slaves because of their threat to his authority emphasizing how education superior to the

Published in 1987, Beloved Toni Morrison excecutes the main theme in such a way that is it frightening and thought provoking. Beloved is a tale of an ex-slave life, Sethe, during and after her imprisonment. The cruelty brought upon a person because of their skin is pure sickening and evil and is the main topic in the novel. The history of slavery in the U.S. is covered in textbooks, it is most often presented from the point of view of white males, slaves could not read or write therefore they could not tell their story. Slavery was human upon human abuse, cruelty and neglect.

     Toni Morrison's Beloved - a novel that addresses the cruelties that result from slavery.  Morrison depicts the African American's quest for a new life while showing the difficult task of escaping the past.  The African American simply wants to claim freedom and create a sense of community.  In Beloved, the characters suffer not from slavery itself, but as a result of slavery - that is to say the pain occurs as they reconstruct themselves, their families, and their communities only "after the devastation of slavery" (Kubitschek 115).  Throughout the novel, Morrison utilizes color as a symbolic tool to represent a free, safe, happy life as well as involvement in community and

Toni Morrison’s classic novel, Beloved, can be briefly summarized as a story with woman who is living in both the horrible aftermath of slavery, as well as her action of murdering her baby child in an attempt to save her from slavery. This story is based on the true story of Margaret Garner, who killed her own child and attempted to kill her other children instead of willfully letting them all return to lives of slavery. While slavery is today clearly classified as wrong by the vast majority of civilized society, as is infanticide, the event that takes place in this book is not as black and white. These instances of a grayer side of morality represent a sort of moral ambiguity that runs rampant throughout the entire novel. The example that is of paramount importance is when Sethe, the protagonist of the story, murders her child in order to save the child from a life of slavery. While at first glance, this act may seem wrong to modern readers, there is actually some evidence that, when thought about, justifies Sethe’s actions.

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

Toni Morrison brings another surprise to the story of Beloved. The addition of character Beloved conceals whole meaning Morrison tries to conduct to the readers. So far, character Beloved is portrayed as an innocent, pure, yet egotistic girl. Beloved also presumably the incarnation of Sethe’s dead baby, whose tomb is engraved Beloved. Morrison offers supernatural element in the story to create mysterious and spooky atmosphere, which raise curiosity and excite readers even more.

Without dehumanizing the black slaves, society cannot to perpetuate the culture of violence necessary to keep a slave based economy intact. People were auctioned like objects and belonging. Just like in the text, dehumanization removes the individuality of the slaves, and they received treatment that are unacceptable for those included in one’s moral community. Moral exclusion reduces restraints against harming or exploiting. Dehumanization removes individuality; by doing so, it makes the violation of generally accepted norms of behavior regarding one's fellow man seem reasonable, or even

Yet another example of Sethe’s dependence on her own strength is the account of Sethe’s own escape from “the grips of slavery in order to protect her children from what Morrison describes as School teacher’s brutal empire”.(196) Sethe is married by fourteen and is a mother by fifteen; but she is older and pregnant with her last child before she has to become superior protector of her children. Twenty-eight days after being a free woman, Sethe is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice as a mother. Although she is jailed as a murderer, her attempt to kill her four children is done so that her children would never know the life of a slave, so they would never be acquainted with “what Baby Suggs died of, what Ella knew, what Stamp saw and what

African-American author Toni Morrison, in her novel, Beloved, explores the experience and roles of black men and women in a racist society. She describes the black culture which is born out of a period of slavery just after the Civil War. In her novel she intends to show the reality of what happened to the slaves in the institutionalized slave system. In Beloved, the slaves working on the Sweet Home experiences brutality, violence, torture and are treated like animals. Morrison shows us what it means to live like a slave as she sheds light on the painful past of African-Americans and reveals the buried experiences for better understanding of African-American history. In the story of Beloved, special importance is given to the horrors and tortures of slavery to remind the readers about the American past. Morrison reinvents the past because she does not want the readers to forget what happened in African-American history.

Morrison and Twain each present freed slave mothers as self-sacrificing. Each woman 's traumatic experiences as slaves create a deep fear of her children 's enslavement. In Morrison 's Beloved, Sethe is so distressed by her past; she murders her child to save her from slavery. Morrison uses Sethe 's drastic sacrifice to comment on slavery 's psychological effects. Meanwhile, Twain 's Pudd 'n Head Wilson portrays Roxy as a sacrificial mother to create sympathy for black people. From a cultural perspective, Roxy counters all of the propaganda about black people in the nineteenth century. Roxy plans to kill her son and herself, but figures out a different way to save her son from slavery. Both characters are selfless mothers, but the authors use this sacrificial behavior to prove different points about slavery. Morrison uses her characters selflessness to show the distress slavery can cause, while Twain capitalizes on the sympathy it creates to humanize black people in the public 's view.

The atrocities of slavery know no bounds. Its devices leave lives ruined families pulled apart and countless people dead. Yet many looked away or accepted it as a necessary part of society, even claiming it was beneficial to all. The only way this logic works is if the slaves are seen as less than human, people who cannot be trusted to take care of themselves. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved the consequences of a lifetime of slavery are examined. Paul D and seethe, two former slaves have experienced the worst slavery has to offer. Under their original master, Mr. Garner the slaves were treated like humans. They were encouraged to think for themselves and make their own decisions. However, upon the death of Mr. Garner all of that changes. Under