Beloved (novel
Beloved 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. The novel, her fifth, is loosely based on the life and legal case of the slave Margaret Garner, about whom Morrison later wrote in the opera Margaret Garner (2005). The book's epigraph reads: "Sixty Million and more," by which Morrison refers to the estimated number of slaves who died in the slave trade. More specifically, she refers to the Middle Passage.In 1998 the novel was adapted into a film of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey.
A survey of eminent authors and critics conducted by The New York Times found Beloved the best work of American fiction of the past 25 years.The results appeared in The Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.[35]
Plot summary
In this novel, Morrison paints a somber picture of the brutal effects of slavery. It examines both the mental and physical trauma caused by slavery as well as its effect on survivors. The book follows the story of Sethe (pronounced "Seth-uh") and her daughter Denver as they try to rebuild their lives after having escaped from slavery.
124 Bluestone, the house they inhabit, is apparently haunted; poltergeist events occur there with an alarming regularity. Because of this, Sethe's youngest daughter, Denver, has no friends and is extremely shy. Howard and Buglar, Sethe's sons, run away from home by the time they are thirteen. One day, a young lady shows up at their house, saying that her name is "Beloved." Sethe comes to believe that the girl is the daughter whom Sethe murdered by slitting her throat with a handsaw when the child was only two years old, and whose tombstone reads only "Beloved". Beloved's presence consumes Sethe to the point where she becomes depleted and even sacrifices her own need for eating, while Beloved becomes more and more strong. In the climax of the novel Denver, the youngest daughter, reaches out and searches for help from the black community.
The novel follows in the tradition of slave narratives, but also confronts the more painful and taboo aspects of slavery, such as sexual abuse and violence, which Morrison pushes to the edge of questioning the idea of being human and of being a mother. She explores the effects on the characters, Paul D and Sethe, of trying to repress—and then coming to terms with—the painful memories of their past.
At the outset, the reader is led to assume Beloved is a supernatural, incarnate form of Sethe's murdered daughter. Later, Stamp Paid reveals the story of "a girl locked up by a white man over by Deer Creek. Found him dead last summer and the girl gone. Maybe that's her". Both are supportable by the text. The possibility that Beloved is the murdered child is supported by the fact that she sings a song known only to Sethe and her children; elsewhere, she speaks of Sethe's earrings without having seen them. However, the characters have a psychological need for Beloved to be that dead child returned: Sethe can assuage her guilt over the death of her child, and Denver has a sister/playmate. Toni Morrison's intention (revealed in interviews) was to compel the reader to become active rather than passive and work to discover what is going on. In 1998, the novel was made into a film directed by Jonathan Demme and produced by and starring Oprah Winfrey.
Major themes
Beloved is a novel based on the impact of slavery and of the emancipation of slaves on individual black people. The major theme of this novel is the relation between a community and one's identity. Why does the mother who murdered her daughter insist living in the haunted house where the crime is committed? What is the relation between Sweet Home, the black community and the haunted house? How do they contribute or undermine one's identity as an individual person? One cannot get away without confronting these questions after this novel. Here are some general themes of the novel:
Identity
One of the central themes of Toni Morrison’s Beloved is the construction of one’s identity. The novel depicts the lives of several ex-slaves and exposes the oppression and devastating consequences slavery had, and continues to have, on their lives. Once free, the slaves attempt to reclaim their individual identities and collective humanity, but the effects of slavery still taint and haunt them, preventing them from being able to live in and enjoy the present or think about the future. Morrison states, “Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” (111). The novel illustrates the characters’ immense struggle to obtain a true sense of self and self-worth, a process that can only be successful if done both individually and on a collective level.
The former slaves try to integrate themselves into a present in which they are not welcomed. They feel subordinate to the white race and need unity to empower and inspire themselves to become autonomous, powerful individuals, able to acknowledge their own self worth. Morrison offers, “Nobody could make it alone… You could be lost forever, if there wasn’t nobody to show you the way.” (159). Denver is one example of this. Isolated in 124 her whole life, Beloved’s presence finally necessitates that she leaves the house and assimilate into the community. Upon doing so, she embarks upon the process of individuation, in which she establishes a sense of self and ultimately becomes a woman. While this process takes place individually, it requires the bonds of womanhood and encouragement of the community. Similarly, Sethe lacks a sense of individuality until the end of the novel. She lives in isolation, both physically from the community and psychologically from acknowledging any role other than that of mother. Morrison shows the painful, detrimental side of motherhood and its ability to stunt or even eliminate a woman’s individuation. Slavery denied Sethe the natural cycles of maternal bonding, causing her to take her role as mother to an extreme, even grotesque length. Sethe constructs the idea that her children are her best parts and it is from that idea that she creates her identity. Without the help of the community, Paul D, and finally Stamp Paid, Sethe would never be able to recognize herself as an entity separate from her children or acknowledge that her sole purpose in life was not to be a mother. At the end of the novel, Paul D tells Sethe, “'You your best thing Sethe, You are.'” (322). Morrison shows that one’s identity is crucial to his success and happiness in life and a person can only conceptualize himself as a separate entity through both collective and individual efforts.
Motherhood
The concept of motherhood within Beloved is as an overarching and overwhelming love that can conquer all, strongly typified within the novel by the character Sethe, whose very name is the feminine of "Seth"- the Biblical 'father of the world'. This can also be seen within Morrison's other works and has led to her sometimes being cited as a feminist writer. The feminine capacity for love is maximal: "It hurt her when mosquitoes bit her baby". Further, Sethe's escape from the slave plantation (ironically named 'Sweet Home') stems from her desire to keep the "mother of her children alive" and not from any personal survival instinct. Sethe's maternal instincts almost lead to her own destruction. Readers can assume the interpretation that Beloved is a wrathful character looking to wreak revenge on Sethe for killing her, despite the fact that the murder was, in Sethe's mind, an entirely loving act. Sethe's guilt at Beloved's death means that she is willing to "give up her life, every minute, hour and second of it, to take back just one of Beloved's tears". The strength of her love leads her almost to the point of death as she allows Beloved complete freedom to destroy her household and relationships; the roles of mother and daughter are completely reversed. "Was it past bedtime, the light no good for sewing? Beloved didn't move, said, 'Do it', and Sethe complied".
History
Toni Morrison wrote Beloved on a foundation of historical events. The most significant event within the novel--the "Misery", or Sethe's murder of Beloved--is based on the 1856 murder by Margaret Garner of her children to prevent them from being recaptured and taken back into slavery with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Morrison admits to "an obsession" with this account after she discovered it while helping edit a scrapbook on black history. The novel itself can be seen as the reworking of fact into something with a very emotional central message. History is woven throughout the novel. The Middle Passage is referenced along with the Underground Railway in many parts of the novel; the 'Sixty Million and More' to whom Morrison dedicates the novel may refer to the many who died during the Middle Passage. The entire concept of slavery described in the novel i.e. Paul D's confinement in Georgia, ideas such as the "bit" and the legislature described are all based on history. This gives the novel a powerful impact.
Beloved's appearance reawakens memories of slavery among the other characters, and they are forced to deal with their pasts instead of trying to repress their memories. Reincarnation and rebirth are also themes in this novel.
Manhood
The only significantly developed male character is Paul D, described as "the kind of man who could walk into a house and make the women cry. Because with him, in his presence, they could cry and tell him things they only told each other". He is, however, emotionally crippled. During his service in a chain-gang, his hands uncontrollably shake until he can learn to trap his emotions and lock them away. It takes Beloved and her audacious seduction to release him and to free the "red heart" he's imprisoned in the "rusted tobacco tin" of his memories. Paul D is the only male character against whom the women's strengths are tested and contrasted. Nearly all the other men in the story are oppressors or comparatively lightly sketched. Paul D cannot cope with Sethe's murder of Beloved—even though he knows it was an extreme act of love—and leaves, but returns to "put his story next to hers", a display of his courage and mature love, if crippled by his slavery ordeal. Leaving the readers without ultimate answers, Toni Morrison concludes on a hopeful note, as Paul D convinces Sethe that she herself is her own "best thing."
Mother-Daughter Relationships
The maternal bonds that connect Sethe to her children inhibit her own individuation and prevent the development of her self. Sethe develops a dangerous maternal passion that results in the murder of one daughter, her own “best self,” and the estrangement of the surviving daughter from the black community, both in an attempt to salvage her “fantasy of the future,” her children, from a life in slavery. However, Sethe fails to recognize her daughter Denver’s need for interaction with this community in order to enter into womanhood. Denver finally succeeds at the end of the novel in establishing her own self and embarking on her
Paradise (novel)
Paradise is a 1997 novel by Toni Morrison, and her first novel since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. According to the author, it completes a "trilogy" that begins with Beloved and includes Jazz.
It was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection January 1998. Interestingly, Morrison wanted to call the novel War but was overridden by her editor[40]
The novel tells the story of the tension between the men of Ruby, Oklahoma (an all-black town founded in 1950) and a group of women who lived in a former convent seventeen miles away. After an opening chapter named after the town, the other chapters are named after the female characters, but are not simply about the women. Each chapter includes flashbacks to crucial events from the town's history in addition to the backstory of the titular character. The women in the Convent are Connie (Consolata), Mavis, Gigi (Grace), Seneca, and Pallas (Divine). The townswomen who receive chapters are Pat (Patricia), Lone and Save-Marie. The focus on the women characters highlights the ways the novel portrays the gender differences between the patriarchal rigidity of the townsmen and the clandestine connections between the townswomen and the women at the Convent.
34. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/TarBaby/ (novel)"
35. Beloved / ALL-TIME 100 Novels / TIME
36. ^ Demetrakopoulos, Stephanie A. “Maternal Bonds as Devourers of Women’s Individuation in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” African American Review, Vol. 25, No. 1. Indiana State University: Indiana, Spring 1992.)
37. ^ Schapiro, Barbara. “The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Contemporary Literature 32; 2. University of Wisconsin Press (1991). 194-210
38. ^ Koolish, Lynda. “‘To be Loved and Cry Shame’: A Psychological Reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” MELUS 26:4 (2001): 169-195.)
39. ^ Boudreau, Kristen. "Pain and the Unmaking of Self in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Contemporary Literature 36 (1995): 447-465.
40. ^ This side of 'Paradise': Toni Morrison defends herself from criticism of her new novel Paradise, Anna Mulrine, U.S. News & World Report 19 January 1998, posted at Swarthmore U website (accessed 29 February 2008).]
41. Toni Morrison by Douglas Century, Chelsea House Publishers, 1994
Beloved 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. The novel, her fifth, is loosely based on the life and legal case of the slave Margaret Garner, about whom Morrison later wrote in the opera Margaret Garner (2005). The book's epigraph reads: "Sixty Million and more," by which Morrison refers to the estimated number of slaves who died in the slave trade. More specifically, she refers to the Middle Passage.In 1998 the novel was adapted into a film of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey.
A survey of eminent authors and critics conducted by The New York Times found Beloved the best work of American fiction of the past 25 years.The results appeared in The Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.[35]
Plot summary
In this novel, Morrison paints a somber picture of the brutal effects of slavery. It examines both the mental and physical trauma caused by slavery as well as its effect on survivors. The book follows the story of Sethe (pronounced "Seth-uh") and her daughter Denver as they try to rebuild their lives after having escaped from slavery.
124 Bluestone, the house they inhabit, is apparently haunted; poltergeist events occur there with an alarming regularity. Because of this, Sethe's youngest daughter, Denver, has no friends and is extremely shy. Howard and Buglar, Sethe's sons, run away from home by the time they are thirteen. One day, a young lady shows up at their house, saying that her name is "Beloved." Sethe comes to believe that the girl is the daughter whom Sethe murdered by slitting her throat with a handsaw when the child was only two years old, and whose tombstone reads only "Beloved". Beloved's presence consumes Sethe to the point where she becomes depleted and even sacrifices her own need for eating, while Beloved becomes more and more strong. In the climax of the novel Denver, the youngest daughter, reaches out and searches for help from the black community.
The novel follows in the tradition of slave narratives, but also confronts the more painful and taboo aspects of slavery, such as sexual abuse and violence, which Morrison pushes to the edge of questioning the idea of being human and of being a mother. She explores the effects on the characters, Paul D and Sethe, of trying to repress—and then coming to terms with—the painful memories of their past.
At the outset, the reader is led to assume Beloved is a supernatural, incarnate form of Sethe's murdered daughter. Later, Stamp Paid reveals the story of "a girl locked up by a white man over by Deer Creek. Found him dead last summer and the girl gone. Maybe that's her". Both are supportable by the text. The possibility that Beloved is the murdered child is supported by the fact that she sings a song known only to Sethe and her children; elsewhere, she speaks of Sethe's earrings without having seen them. However, the characters have a psychological need for Beloved to be that dead child returned: Sethe can assuage her guilt over the death of her child, and Denver has a sister/playmate. Toni Morrison's intention (revealed in interviews) was to compel the reader to become active rather than passive and work to discover what is going on. In 1998, the novel was made into a film directed by Jonathan Demme and produced by and starring Oprah Winfrey.
Major themes
Beloved is a novel based on the impact of slavery and of the emancipation of slaves on individual black people. The major theme of this novel is the relation between a community and one's identity. Why does the mother who murdered her daughter insist living in the haunted house where the crime is committed? What is the relation between Sweet Home, the black community and the haunted house? How do they contribute or undermine one's identity as an individual person? One cannot get away without confronting these questions after this novel. Here are some general themes of the novel:
Identity
One of the central themes of Toni Morrison’s Beloved is the construction of one’s identity. The novel depicts the lives of several ex-slaves and exposes the oppression and devastating consequences slavery had, and continues to have, on their lives. Once free, the slaves attempt to reclaim their individual identities and collective humanity, but the effects of slavery still taint and haunt them, preventing them from being able to live in and enjoy the present or think about the future. Morrison states, “Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” (111). The novel illustrates the characters’ immense struggle to obtain a true sense of self and self-worth, a process that can only be successful if done both individually and on a collective level.
The former slaves try to integrate themselves into a present in which they are not welcomed. They feel subordinate to the white race and need unity to empower and inspire themselves to become autonomous, powerful individuals, able to acknowledge their own self worth. Morrison offers, “Nobody could make it alone… You could be lost forever, if there wasn’t nobody to show you the way.” (159). Denver is one example of this. Isolated in 124 her whole life, Beloved’s presence finally necessitates that she leaves the house and assimilate into the community. Upon doing so, she embarks upon the process of individuation, in which she establishes a sense of self and ultimately becomes a woman. While this process takes place individually, it requires the bonds of womanhood and encouragement of the community. Similarly, Sethe lacks a sense of individuality until the end of the novel. She lives in isolation, both physically from the community and psychologically from acknowledging any role other than that of mother. Morrison shows the painful, detrimental side of motherhood and its ability to stunt or even eliminate a woman’s individuation. Slavery denied Sethe the natural cycles of maternal bonding, causing her to take her role as mother to an extreme, even grotesque length. Sethe constructs the idea that her children are her best parts and it is from that idea that she creates her identity. Without the help of the community, Paul D, and finally Stamp Paid, Sethe would never be able to recognize herself as an entity separate from her children or acknowledge that her sole purpose in life was not to be a mother. At the end of the novel, Paul D tells Sethe, “'You your best thing Sethe, You are.'” (322). Morrison shows that one’s identity is crucial to his success and happiness in life and a person can only conceptualize himself as a separate entity through both collective and individual efforts.
Motherhood
The concept of motherhood within Beloved is as an overarching and overwhelming love that can conquer all, strongly typified within the novel by the character Sethe, whose very name is the feminine of "Seth"- the Biblical 'father of the world'. This can also be seen within Morrison's other works and has led to her sometimes being cited as a feminist writer. The feminine capacity for love is maximal: "It hurt her when mosquitoes bit her baby". Further, Sethe's escape from the slave plantation (ironically named 'Sweet Home') stems from her desire to keep the "mother of her children alive" and not from any personal survival instinct. Sethe's maternal instincts almost lead to her own destruction. Readers can assume the interpretation that Beloved is a wrathful character looking to wreak revenge on Sethe for killing her, despite the fact that the murder was, in Sethe's mind, an entirely loving act. Sethe's guilt at Beloved's death means that she is willing to "give up her life, every minute, hour and second of it, to take back just one of Beloved's tears". The strength of her love leads her almost to the point of death as she allows Beloved complete freedom to destroy her household and relationships; the roles of mother and daughter are completely reversed. "Was it past bedtime, the light no good for sewing? Beloved didn't move, said, 'Do it', and Sethe complied".
History
Toni Morrison wrote Beloved on a foundation of historical events. The most significant event within the novel--the "Misery", or Sethe's murder of Beloved--is based on the 1856 murder by Margaret Garner of her children to prevent them from being recaptured and taken back into slavery with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Morrison admits to "an obsession" with this account after she discovered it while helping edit a scrapbook on black history. The novel itself can be seen as the reworking of fact into something with a very emotional central message. History is woven throughout the novel. The Middle Passage is referenced along with the Underground Railway in many parts of the novel; the 'Sixty Million and More' to whom Morrison dedicates the novel may refer to the many who died during the Middle Passage. The entire concept of slavery described in the novel i.e. Paul D's confinement in Georgia, ideas such as the "bit" and the legislature described are all based on history. This gives the novel a powerful impact.
Beloved's appearance reawakens memories of slavery among the other characters, and they are forced to deal with their pasts instead of trying to repress their memories. Reincarnation and rebirth are also themes in this novel.
Manhood
The only significantly developed male character is Paul D, described as "the kind of man who could walk into a house and make the women cry. Because with him, in his presence, they could cry and tell him things they only told each other". He is, however, emotionally crippled. During his service in a chain-gang, his hands uncontrollably shake until he can learn to trap his emotions and lock them away. It takes Beloved and her audacious seduction to release him and to free the "red heart" he's imprisoned in the "rusted tobacco tin" of his memories. Paul D is the only male character against whom the women's strengths are tested and contrasted. Nearly all the other men in the story are oppressors or comparatively lightly sketched. Paul D cannot cope with Sethe's murder of Beloved—even though he knows it was an extreme act of love—and leaves, but returns to "put his story next to hers", a display of his courage and mature love, if crippled by his slavery ordeal. Leaving the readers without ultimate answers, Toni Morrison concludes on a hopeful note, as Paul D convinces Sethe that she herself is her own "best thing."
Mother-Daughter Relationships
The maternal bonds that connect Sethe to her children inhibit her own individuation and prevent the development of her self. Sethe develops a dangerous maternal passion that results in the murder of one daughter, her own “best self,” and the estrangement of the surviving daughter from the black community, both in an attempt to salvage her “fantasy of the future,” her children, from a life in slavery. However, Sethe fails to recognize her daughter Denver’s need for interaction with this community in order to enter into womanhood. Denver finally succeeds at the end of the novel in establishing her own self and embarking on her
Paradise (novel)
Paradise is a 1997 novel by Toni Morrison, and her first novel since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. According to the author, it completes a "trilogy" that begins with Beloved and includes Jazz.
It was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection January 1998. Interestingly, Morrison wanted to call the novel War but was overridden by her editor[40]
The novel tells the story of the tension between the men of Ruby, Oklahoma (an all-black town founded in 1950) and a group of women who lived in a former convent seventeen miles away. After an opening chapter named after the town, the other chapters are named after the female characters, but are not simply about the women. Each chapter includes flashbacks to crucial events from the town's history in addition to the backstory of the titular character. The women in the Convent are Connie (Consolata), Mavis, Gigi (Grace), Seneca, and Pallas (Divine). The townswomen who receive chapters are Pat (Patricia), Lone and Save-Marie. The focus on the women characters highlights the ways the novel portrays the gender differences between the patriarchal rigidity of the townsmen and the clandestine connections between the townswomen and the women at the Convent.
34. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/TarBaby/ (novel)"
35. Beloved / ALL-TIME 100 Novels / TIME
36. ^ Demetrakopoulos, Stephanie A. “Maternal Bonds as Devourers of Women’s Individuation in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” African American Review, Vol. 25, No. 1. Indiana State University: Indiana, Spring 1992.)
37. ^ Schapiro, Barbara. “The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Contemporary Literature 32; 2. University of Wisconsin Press (1991). 194-210
38. ^ Koolish, Lynda. “‘To be Loved and Cry Shame’: A Psychological Reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” MELUS 26:4 (2001): 169-195.)
39. ^ Boudreau, Kristen. "Pain and the Unmaking of Self in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Contemporary Literature 36 (1995): 447-465.
40. ^ This side of 'Paradise': Toni Morrison defends herself from criticism of her new novel Paradise, Anna Mulrine, U.S. News & World Report 19 January 1998, posted at Swarthmore U website (accessed 29 February 2008).]
41. Toni Morrison by Douglas Century, Chelsea House Publishers, 1994
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