Category: Beloved

In her masterpiece novel Beloved, Morrison instills her writing talents, prominent imagination, and passionate dedication to sense and depict the temperature of the society of the nineteenth century in the United States.

The story of Beloved, with unusual complexity and circumspective fabrications, gives the African Americans their history back, piece by piece (Davis 241). Going beyond the traditional definition of the “black literature” Morrison’s Beloved brings the black history and new “black literature” to the public attention (Davis 241).

With extraordinary narrative techniques and combination of realism and folklores, the coldness of ignorance and the warmth of love and freedom jog on each piece of page of the novel. Morrison uses at least three binary constructions to portray the struggles of slaves from the bottom of the blacks’ souls and minds, reflecting the conflicts in the American society in the 1800s: gender struggles, racial inequalities, and community discrepancies.

Gender struggle is an extended social issue that has played an important role in American history, and in Beloved Toni Morrison uses binary construction of female and male gender to present the desperate inequality between genders in the era of antebellum. Sethe, as the female protagonist in Beloved, is an important element in the binary construction of genders.

The institution of slavery, “the atrocity of historical time” (Demetrakopoulos 51) denies Sethe as the mother and “destroys the natural cycles of maternal bonding” (Demetrakopoulos 51). In spite of the privileges of a female gender, Sethe realizes that only self-protection and self-sacrifice can save her and her children, who might repeat the same cycle of tragic maternal fate of an African American women.

As a loving mother, Sethe has to kill the crawling baby with her own hands in order to protect the baby from being enslaved and mistreated by the crude and inhumane circumstances. By killing her baby, Sethe not only loses the one of the most precious bonding she obtains, but also pushes herself to a desolate world that contains guilt, fear, and uneasiness.

However, the decision of the over-self-sacrifice reaction does not only come from the struggles that Sethe has suffered, but also from the fear of stepping onto the same despairing “checkerboard” that Baby Suggs has been. The maternal horror of a mother, tragically, ends the life of a baby, and at the meanwhile, demonstrates the inviolability and self-esteem of a female, as a mother, and as a human being.

As the weaker side in the gender struggles, females never step away to avoid the conflicts that they encounter; rather, they dear to use their strong sensibility to erase the potential problems and to maintain their deserved self-respect. The struggles faced by the females partially come from the historical factors of their time, but more importantly, is because the predominant males, who take most of the powers and privileges away, and presume its rationality and legibility.

To take the schoolteacher in Beloved as an example, he abuses the manly power he retains and arbitrarily takes his superior physical advantage to humiliate Sethe, a woman who stands at the weaker side of the gender struggle. The apathy and the arbitrariness of the male further strengthen the originally-not-equal balance between two genders.

Beloved by Morrison is the ideal representation of the motherhood and slavery which reflect the connection between the social position of a person, the gender and the family status (Caesar 111). In the same vein, the binary construction of the blacks and the whites is another focal point that illustrates the racial inequality in the American society. Racial inequalities is the central theme of the novel as in case this problem was not the central disaster in the society, Sethe would not even think about the murder of her child.

The time period presented in the novel perfectly reflects the fears of black people (Babbitt 7). Having lived the life in slavery Sethe understands what life may wait for her child, the life of a slave who has to suffer from the absence of freedom, constant beating and injustice. Being oppressed during the whole life, Sethe also understands that other people have an opportunity to lead other lives.

Sethe is sure that due to her racial belonging, her child will never be able to lead a life as Whites do. Racial contractions, White and Blacks nations are presented in the novel showing the superiority of the White nation over the Black one. Showing the opposition of the ethnical belonging, the author perfectly reflected the situation which happened in the American society. Only the ethnic belonging reflected the place of the person in life.

Conducting an analysis of the novel, Eckstein refers to the peculiarities of the African community stressing the idea that African community is much younger than al the prejudices and discrimination. Eckstein is sure that the author of the novel tries to reflect this idea in metaphorical music expression, “in the beginning there were no words. In the beginning there was the sound, and they all knew what that sound sounded like…” (in Eckstein 271).

Jesser and Reed are sure the novel is the good example of the black community and the domination of the female authority there. Reed states that by means of utterance like “women’s preaching narrative, cries and moans, sound becomes the vehicle for communal restoration and the means by which the women in the novel demonstrate spiritual authority” (55).

At the same time, shoving the time and space changes the author tries to remind people about the community they lived in and the peculiarities of this community. The researchers is sure that the narration processes “are linked to spatial formations and communal configurations” that helps the reader to feel the mood of the whole African community, but not the situation in one simple family.

In conclusion, it should be stated that Beloved by Toni Morrison is a great work which “puts into words three orders of experience that Western cultural narratives usually leave out: childbirth and nursing from a mother’s perspective; the desire of a preverbal infant; and the suffering of those destroyed by slavery, including the Africans who died on the slave ships” (Wyatt 474).

These ideas which reflect the binary constructions and make those crucial for understanding the novel. Toni Morrison wanted to show the life of people in contrast and have presented not only the social situation in the American society but has also provided the information about the gender opposition, ethnical differences and community peculiarities of the country which was burdened with racial discrimination and slavery.

Works Cited

Babbitt, Susan E. “Identity, Knowledge, and Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”: Questions about Understanding Racism.” Hypatia 9.3 (1994): 1-18. JSTOR. Web.

Caesar, Terry Paul. “Slavery and Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”.” Revista de Letras 34 (1994): 111-120. JSTOR. Web.

Davis, Kimberly Chabot. “Postmodern Blackness.” Twentieth Century Literature 44.2 (1998): 242-260. JSTOR. Web.

Demetrakopoulos, Stephanie. “Maternal Bonds as Devourers of Women’s Individuation in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” African American Review 26.1 (1992): 51-59. JSTOR. Web.

Eckstein, Lars. “A Love Supreme: Jazzthetic Strategies in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”.” African American Review 40.2 (2006): 271-283. JSTOR. Web.

Jesser, Nancy. “Violence, Home, and Community in Toni Morrison’s Beloved”. African American Review 33.2 (1999): 325-345. JSTOR. Web.

Reed, Roxanne R. “The Restorative Power of Sound: A Case for Communal Catharsis in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 23.1 (2007): 55-71. JSTOR. Web.

Wyatt, Jean. “Giving Body to the Word: The Maternal Symbolic in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” PMLA 108.3 (1993): 474-488. JSTOR. Web.

In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a man owns things, defies authority, makes decisions, and remains loyal to his wife. Manhood is not just one set of male identities; rather, they are a collection of diverse, intertwined, and sometimes contradictory social practices and experiences (Ammann and Staudacher 759). Paul D is now free from an enslaved person, and during his time in slavery, he struggled with his strengths and inadequacies as a man. As a means of controlling Paul D’s mind, his former enslaver, Mr. Garner, convinced him that during his years of slavery, he was a real man; by questioning his masculinity, he resolved the conflict with Sethe, who killed their children. Even though there is more interest, not enough research has been done on men who live in the countryside to create and negotiate their masculinities in intimate relationships (Dery 9671). Paul D returns to Sethe, takes responsibility, and finally discovers his manhood after realizing how much he needs and loves her. By doing so, he resolved the conflict he had about his masculinity.

Paul D has always considered himself a man because of his master, Mr. Garner. In reality, however, he is male and has yet to claim his masculinity. Garner bragged about the men he bought and enslaved, so his claim that all of them were “men” and not “niggers” is ridiculous. Garner says to farmers, “Now at Sweet Home, my niggers are men every one of them. Bought them that away, raised them that away. Men everyone” (Morrison and Evaristo 12). As all other men believe that men “have things” and Garner’s “men” has nothing, he claims that other farmers have boys and he has men. By pretending to be men, the mind of Garner controlled his men in slavery, but they left Garner unexpectedly. The enslaved people are unlikely to resist or think of escaping because they are grateful to their masters for treating them as “men.” Garner told the farmer that niggers are men, and the farmer thought he was crazy because he knew niggers were niggers. The farmer says to Garner, “Beg to differ, Garner. I am not nigger men…I would not have no nigger men round my wife” (Morrison and Evaristo 12). The farmer insisted that he was not a nigger because his wife would not have any nigger men around her. Garner often returns home injured as disagreements escalate into fights with other farmers. In addition, Mr. Garner explains to the farmers why he considers his niggers to be men. Paul D argues that the white man said he was a man after hearing all this from Mr. Garner. Paul D starts questioning himself and says, “Was that it? Is that where the manhood lay? In the naming done by a white man who was supposed to know? In their relationship with Garner was true metal: they were believed and trusted, but most of all listened to” (Morrison and Evaristo 147). For Paul D and the rest of Sweet Home men to experience their masculinity under Mr. Garner, he made them believe that they were the same men that everyone else thought they were. Because black people easily believe what white people say, Paul D begins questioning whether he is a man and whether Mr. Garner is correct. Paul D says, “The last of the Sweet Home men, so named and called by one who would know, believed it. The other 4 believed it too, once, but they were long gone…only 5 were men” (Morrison and Evaristo 147). Garner believed that only his slaves were “men.” Mr. Garner and their relationship with him convinced Paul D that they were men because Garner always listened to them and let them do whatever they wanted. The real irony is their relationship with Garner: they are heard, trusted, and believed. He realizes he is not a man yet but does not know what that means. Paul D eventually concluded that what Mr. Garner said was wrong, but he accepted it since Garner was his master and a white man.

Paul D realizes that the man who made Sethe kill her child, the Schoolteacher, was always right about being a man, and Paul D was far from it. Paul D knows Garner refers to him and his slaves as the only men. In Paul D’s life, he has been told what to do, but he never refused; instead, he will do what they tell him. According to the story, the Schoolteacher is the one who taught them that they were just Sweet Home men at Sweet Home. “And it was he, that man, who had walked from Georgia to Delaware, who could not go or stay put where he wanted to in shame,” says the book (Morrison and Evaristo 148). Paul D is a shame to humanity because he had to walk from “Georgia to Delaware” to find a place to live. One step away from the place are human invaders, and true men live there; if the Schoolteacher is right, it makes sense how he turned into a ragdoll. These men are seen as men in Sweet Home, while outside there, they are known only as “niggers” and are seen as trespassers. Even when Paul D did not want to have sex with Beloved, he had a relationship with Beloved’s mother, Sethe. He never said no to Beloved, a girl young enough to be his daughter. While he could have refused and told Sethe about it like a real man, he claimed there was nothing he could do about it. Men generally know where they want to go, compared to Paul D, who doesn’t know where he wants to stay.

Paul D finally returned to Sethe, taking the first steps to regain his manhood. At first, he left her after revealing that she had killed her children to prevent him from being enslaved. He finally realizes that by coming back and taking responsibility, and wanting to make things right, Sethe helped him become a man. “Deciding how his going would be, how to make it an exit, not an escape,” says the narrator (Morrison and Evaristo 194). Paul D wants to leave and forget Sethe’s past. He doesn’t want to be seen as a runaway man, which is not manhood and something Paul D is used to doing because of his traumatic experiences in slavery. The narrator mentions, “When he looks at himself through Garner’s eyes, he sees one thing. Through Sixo’s, another. One makes him feel righteous. One makes him feel ashamed” (Morrison and Evaristo 315). When Paul D saw himself with Garner and Sixo, he got two very different feelings, as if he was taking care of himself. One, he feels embarrassed, and because Sixo, one of the members of Sweet Home, is more masculine than Paul D, he feels “shame” through Sixo’s eyes. It made him jealous, and Garner made him feel “just” because he thought Paul D was the man from Sweet Home. Paul D was jealous of Sixo because he had a woman 30 miles away who was Sixo’s girlfriend and was always open about how he felt about the relationship. However, even after his death, Sixo was a man, and the instance provoked Paul D’s mind to reconcile with Sethe. Paul D understands that he has to open up in his relationship with Sethe, so he chooses to return to Sethe at the age of 124 to maintain his manhood by dealing with her concerns and solving their problems. The narrator and Paul D explain, “…did not have to feel the shame of being collared like a beast. Only this woman, Sethe could have left him his manhood like that… your best thing, Sethe. You are” (Morrison and Evaristo 322). Because Paul D had never been in a relationship with a woman before and had no family in his past, only Sethe made him feel like a man. While living with Sethe, he had another important experience that he had never had before. Paul D declared Sethe “the best thing” because he was just a “man” in terms of gender, and he could not claim his manhood without her. After years, Paul D finally found his manhood, and it made him feel good.

In conclusion, Tony Morrison and Bernardine Evaristo’s Beloved tells the story of Paul D, a formerly enslaved man, and how he became a man. In Sweet Home of Mr. Garner, Paul D is convinced he is a real man, but he is only a man. When he left Sweet Home, the whites called him a trespasser, like other enslaved blacks (Morrison and Evaristo 148). It took Paul D a long time to realize who he was because of everything in his life. Morrison used Paul D as an example of masculinity because he struggled with manhood his whole life and concluded that Sethe was the only person that made him feel like a real man.

Works Cited

Ammann, Carole, and Sandra Staudacher. “Masculinities in Africa beyond Crisis: Complexity, Fluidity, and Intersectionality.”Gender, Place & Culture, vol. 28, no. 6, 2020, pp. 759–768. Web.

Dery, Isaac. “Give Her a Slap or Two. She Might Change”. Negotiating Masculinities through Intimate Partner Violence among Rural Ghanaian Men. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, vol. 36, (19-20), 2019, pp. 9670–9690. Web.

Morrison, Toni, and Bernardine Evaristo. Beloved. Vintage Classics, 2022.

Choose Your Adventure

Authors develop their stories in different ways to create a particular impression. Approaches they use are discussed in the framework of narratology. This study analyzes plot peculiarities for the readers to understand how the text works. The structure of a story is often altered with the help of jumps forward and backward in the time.

Morrison, for example, uses analepsis in her Beloved to tell her readers what has happened to her characters in the past through flashbacks. Even though she could have narrated the entire novel in sequential order, she resorted to flashbacks because they provide an opportunity to unexpectedly reveal how the characters are connected, grab the reader’s attention, and ensure their understanding of the described events. Morrison’s novel is written before Beloved is Tar Baby that depicts the romantic relationships between two African-Americans.

The plot of Beloved is rather complex due to the flashbacks that are revealed with the help of storytelling and provide the reader with the opportunity to go back in time for several decades. This approach is mainly used to allow the former slaves to focus on their memories about those painful events that took place in their past. Negative experiences are often repressed by people’s minds. If Morrison had revealed them through simple conversations between her characters, this element would be lost. In Beloved, the stories are told not as whole events but as pieces revealed by different individuals. As a result, readers can obtain an understanding of the same event from different perspectives. They can realize what made the characters act in a particular way and gather pieces of a puzzle to find a complete whole.

Beloved is a novel that is not linear at all, and it can be understood from the very beginning. Almost from the very beginning, a flashback reveals the escape of 13-year-old Howard and Burglar from 124 Bluestone. Then it transforms into other stories, including those connected to Baby Suggs and the entity that haunts 124 Bluestone. Using this technique at the beginning of her novel, Morrison manages to make a profound influence on readers. In this very case, an analepsis allowed her to draw them in.

The text is structured so that readers deal with the information that is separated into different portions that do not stick together because they are associated with diverse events. As a result, they are willing to get to know more about the characters and their experiences. For example, with the description “not only did she have to live out her years in a house palsied by the baby’s fury at having its throat cut…,” the author does not simply reveal the fact that a baby that was murdered is an entity that haunts the house (Morrison 2). She makes readers more interested in the story, encouraging them to wonder who would have cut a baby’s throat and under what circumstances, as well as, why did the baby start haunting 124 Bluestone. Thus, further reading can be promoted through the emphasis made on readers’ curiosity awoken by the analepsis.

Flashbacks can occur not only at the beginning of a text but in any other part. In Beloved, they constantly occur throughout the novel. In this way, readers remain engaged in the past and the present at the same time, which makes it simpler for them to understand the connection between various events and characters. For instance, during the conversation between Beloved and Denver, the first one said: “tell me how Sethe made you in the boat” (Morrison 45). Here, Denver tells the story from Sethe’s point of view but focusing only on some information that she managed to remember. However, when Beloved starts helping her, she already sees and feels everything as if she was Sethe. In this way, the paragraph turns into a flashback.

An intentional loose structure makes the reads wander through the period between 1835 and 1875 even though the majority of the events happen in 1873. In addition to that, flashbacks provide readers with an opportunity to change locations. From 124 Bluestone, they go to Kentucky, the Ohio River, Delaware, and the land outside of Sweet Home. In this way, it becomes possible to see the difference between the slave and the free states and explain the present with the help of the past.

For example, saying that “by 1873, Sethe and her daughter were [the ghost’s] only victims,” the narrator places the main action in a particular year (Morrison 1). However, the following paragraphs are focused on the way Baby Suggs escaped the ghost previously. What is more, when Paul D first sees Sethe, a flashback is used to present his memories and reaction to her arrival more than two decades ago. As they spend time together, they also discuss past events through flashbacks to share experiences at Sweet Home. Beloved is also full of direct flashbacks. For instance, the story of Denver’s birth and recalls on the Plan’s failure are not aligned with any present-day comment.

Further in the text, flashbacks also allowed the author to connect both characters’ present and past. Sitting on the church steps, Paul D recollects some information about his past. The flashback about Sweet Home and his escape from it is introduced in a slightly different manner but has the same purpose and effect as the previously discussed one. Paul D recollects: “Sixo, hitching up the horses, is speaking English again and tells Halle what his Thirty-Mile Woman told him” (Morrison 125). With the beginning of the analepsis, the tense shifts. This is an interesting characteristic of this very moment because it provides an opportunity to differentiate the past and the present. As those events that took place previously become discussed in the present tense, readers start treating them as current ones, which affects the quality of their understanding. Perceiving events as if they resort to real-time, readers immerse in the character’s memories.

At first glance, it seems that understanding the story in the course of reading can make some difficulty. However, it can be noted only about those who crave instant clarity. The plot is not straightforward and not retrospective. It is divided into large blocks of scenes one after another almost chaotically. Nevertheless, it is rather an impression. It becomes evident that such an approach becomes the only possible logic in a person’s life advancing towards insanity. The past of Morrison’s characters affects them greatly that is why readers should experience it not through simple retelling but by engaging in those events through the analepsis. As a result, the understanding of the whole story and the message the author wanted to convey enhances enormously.

The discussed scene has successfully coped with this task because the analepsis provided greater detail than storytelling ever could. In other words, with the help of this analepsis, the author manages to underline the importance of particular events and ensures that readers remain engaged with the past. In this way, readers obtain an opportunity to find out something new about the characters throughout the whole novel. Bits of new information reveal unknown connections between them and amaze readers. The use of the mentioned device provides the author with an opportunity to bridge those events she considers to be critical for the understanding of a particular experience, emotion, and action. Morrison repeats meaningful images as if she heals the wrenched parts of the plot. This narrative strategy reflects important themes through the emphasis, which it puts on them.

The device of analepsis illustrates that some events are never forgotten because the places where they took place did not disappear. That is why the main heroine cannot allow her children to return to the South where she lived because then they would have gone through all the trials that fell to her lot. Morrison uses the specific word of “memory”: “you bump into a memory that belongs to somebody else” (43). It describes and explains this picture, existing simultaneously in the human consciousness and in the reality that does not disappear even after the death of all the people who participated in this event, thus expecting new victims that it can immerse.

All in all, Morrison manages to convey the story she wants to tell because she uses flashbacks and allows readers to combine previously acknowledged information with the information that was obtained recently. Still, she makes this process rather complex as she resorts to the interrelations between the present and the past. This complicity can be discussed in the example of the events that happen when Beloved familiarizes readers with her world. Her real-time stories turn out to be past ones as they took place a day before she arrived at 124 Bluestone.

As a result, the author allows readers to understand where Beloved comes from and why she acts in a particular way. As some pieces of new information can be found throughout the whole novel, readers want to read it again so that they can catch those parts they have missed and fill in all the gaps in the plot. With rare exceptions, Morrison describes relations not between black and white, but only between blacks or their relationships with the community. It is possible to state that the author leads a good literary game, intertwining Negro myths with reality, folk dialect, and cultural speech. The mythical and poetic threads of her chronology are also naturally integrated into the fabric of the novel along with reasoning, allusions, and free quoting.

In this way, it cannot be denied that even though Morrison uses various elements of narratology in her novel Beloved, the most prominent device is an analepsis. With its help, the author manages to grab readers’ interest and attention and ensures their understanding of the described events and connect with the past throughout the whole text of the novel.

Work Cited

Morrison, Tony. Beloved. Random House, 2014.

Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’ is a story told against the backdrop of slavery in America. An African-American herself, Morrison weaves a powerful tale that reveals the real ugly psychological and historical truth about slavery. Most of the characters in the novel, including the protagonist Sethe, have been victimized by slavery in differing ways. Just as all human beings have been born with the gift of fighting against odds in life , these characters too resist by developing their own series of responses to the various adversities that confront them.

Sethe, a black woman, endures a series of horrific adversities. She responds positively several times while her seventh response is negative. Her first response, when she is molested by the nephews of a schoolteacher, is to report the misbehavior to Mrs. Garner in the hope that the perpetrators would be severely reprimanded. Her protest falls on deaf ears as and instead gains her a merciless whipping despite being pregnant. Seeing the futility of her action, her next response is to flee into the forest. From there, with the help of Amy Denver and Stamp Pad, she manages to reach the safety of Baby Suggs’s home. Sethe’s next adversity comes when the schoolteacher finds her and attempts to forcibly make her children and her return to Sweet Home. Her response to his is to run away with her children to the woodshed, where desperate at having no solution in sight, she exercises ‘rough choice,’ namely, opting to kill her children rather than let them return to the horrors of slavery that she experienced {“and split to the woodshed to kill her children” (Morrison 158)}. She succeeds in killing one of them – her elder daughter – with a handsaw. Sethe’s next faces adversity comes in the form of shamefully waiting in line for food with the rest of the black community in Cincinnati. She responds by thinking of herself as superior to the rest of the blacks, shunning the free food and instead of robbing food from the restaurant {“I pick up a little extra from the restaurant is all” (Morrison 67)}. Adversity next comes in the form of Beloved, who she is certain is the incarnation of the daughter she killed. Her response is to try her best to make up for her crime by satisfying each and every demand of Beloved to the extent of literally enslaving herself to the girl. Her next adversity is a mistaken one and takes place when Mr. Bodwin is wrongly believed by her to be the schoolteacher. She responds by rushing at him furiously with an ice pick with the aim of killing him. Her final adversity comes when Beloved disappears in response to the incursion of members of the Cincinnati black community at 124. Her response this time is negative. She gives up hope and retires to Baby Suggs’s bed to await death.

Sethe’s daughter Denver’s first adversity is years of relative isolation from the black community of Cincinnati. She responds bypassing long periods of time secluded in a secret haven within boxwood bushes that she fondly calls her ’emerald closet’ {“Denver’s world [was] flat, mostly, with the exception of an emerald closet standing seven feet high in the woods” (Morrison 37)}. Her second adversity is a feeling of exacerbated loneliness when the residential ghost of 124 is forced to depart by Paul D. Denver responds by resenting Paul D ferociously. Her third adversity occurs when Paul D and Sethe become lovers and the latter gives more and more attention to him, thereby making Denver feel jealous and isolated. Her response is to increase her resentment of Paul D. Denver’s final adversity is a combination of Beloved’s increasing tyranny over Sethe and her mother’s escalating submissiveness. She responds by leaving the house and resolutely creating her own identity in the Cincinnati black community by first asking for help from them to look after Sethe and Beloved, and then following it up to educating herself first by Miss Bodwin and later by joining the Oberlin College.

Although Beloved’s identity is elusive and complex, there is evidence in the book that reveals she is a normal woman who has been brutalized by a long period of slavery. Her response to adversity in the form of years of oppression is to respond by directing her pent-up emotions at Sethe. Beloved develops an obsessive attachment towards Sethe based on the latter’s guilt at murdering her elder daughter {“Sethe was trying to make up for the handsaw; Beloved was making her pay for it” (Morrison 251)}. Beloved’s next adversity begins with the arrival of Paul D at 124 and the subsequent sexual relationship that develops between him and Sethe. Beloved becomes jealous and responds by resenting Paul D, harassing him by directing him forcefully around the house {“she moved him from room to room, like a rag doll” (Morrison 221)} and forcing him to have sex with her. Beloved’s final adversity comes when Ella and other members of Cincinnati’s black community come to 124 {“they fell into three groups; those that believed in the worst; those that believed none of it; and those, like Ella, who thought it through” (Morrison 255)} to exorcise her from it. Seeing no way out, Beloved’s response is to quietly run away, never to return.

Baby Suggs response to several years of ill-treatment and degradation brought about by slavery is, upon becoming a free woman, to provide agitated and spiritual inspiration to Cincinnati’s black community by organizing religious meetings at the Clearing {“a wide-open space deep in the woods” (Morrison 87)}.

On the other hand, the response of Paul D to several years of slavery involving physical and emotional trauma is to suppress his bad memories and take a firm decision that the only way to survive is to not develop an attachment to anything in life.

Halle’s response to the adversity of being forced to watch his pregnant wife Sethe being violated by the schoolteacher’s nephews who steal her bodily secreted milk {“they took my milk and he saw it” (Morrison 69)} is to become so horrified that his sanity snaps and he becomes mad.

Lady Jones’ response to adversity in the form of isolation due to societal disapproval for being a mulatoo is to retain a strong feeling of societal obligation and educate children of Cincinnati who have been deprived of social privileges and rights in her unique house-school {“Lady Jones sat in a straight-backed chair; several children sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her” (Morrison 102)}.

In conclusion, ‘Beloved’ does well to lay bare the inhuman treatment meted out to African-American slaves during what was undoubtedly the blackest period in American history. Morrison does well to pay tribute to the indomitable spirit of mankind by showing how the African-Americans resisted the various adversities that came their way by developing their own unique responses ranging from the powerful to feeble . Toni Morrison, the author of powerful novels like ‘The Bluest Eye’ and ‘Sula’, has written another masterpiece in ‘Beloved’ thereby proving that she has few equals in the field of African-American fiction. It is no wonder therefore that she holds the distinction of being the first African-American to be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1993.

Reference

Morrison, Toni. “Beloved.” New York: Plume. 1998.