History of Afrian Americans in Toni Morrison´s Beloved

Toni Morrison was the first African American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. The novel, Beloved, considered by many to be her best, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Beloved, is a novel that reflects upon the History of African American slaves. This novel depicts images of the past, for former slaves in the novel; the past is a burden that they desperately try to forget. However for the protagonist Sethe, memories of slavery are inescapable. Beloved begins in 1873, Cincinnati, Ohio which embodies three generations of slavery, Baby Suggs; the grandmother, Sethe; the mother and Denver; the daughter.

In Beloved, Toni Morrison centralizes the main theme around the history of slavery in the United States. The overall theme of the novel is the reconstruction in the shadow of slavery; the need for ex-slaves to deal with their agonizing pasts in order to heal or reconstruct themselves. To develop this theme, Morrison tells the story of Sethe, a former slave woman who chooses to kill her baby girl rather than allowing her to be exposed to the physical, emotional, and spiritual cruel terrors of a life spent in slavery. "It is the ultimate gesture of a loving mother. It is the outrageous claim of a slave"(Morrison 1987). These are the words that Toni Morrison used to describe the actions of the central character within the novel, Beloved. Although Sethe does not spend much time in jail for her crime, she spends most of her life paying for the murder. She is not accepted by the community, haunted by the ghost of her dead daughter, and driven by the painful memories of what she has endured as a slave and inflicted on her children. Lacking motherly love herself, Sethe sets out to heal her wounds by being a perfect mother...

... middle of paper ...

...he is chained to her “haunted” past. Morrison effectively depicts the shattered lives of Sethe, her family, former slaves and the community through her unique writing style. The narrative does not follow a traditional, linear plot. Ms. Morrison divides Beloved into three books. Each book is divided into sections, which she does not number. Ms. Morrison's decision to not number her chapters in a traditional format should be considered for its own artistic importance. The reader discovers the story of Sethe through fragments from the past and present that Morrison reveals and links in a variety of ways. The novel is like a puzzle of many pieces that the reader must put together to form a full picture. Through this style, which serves as a metaphor for the broken lives of her characters, Morrison successfully conveys the horrors of slavery and the power of a community.