The Importance of Color in Toni Morrison's Beloved
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 family. She also uses color to convey a character's desire for such a life, while at the same time using it to illustrate the satisfaction and fulfillment that the characters enjoy only after achieving this new life.
Paul D's experience is one example of Morrison's use of color as a symbol. Paul D asks a Cherokee man how to get North - "Free North. Magical North," (Morrison 112), thus conveying his desire for a free, safe, happy, new, and magical life. The Cherokee man replies, "Follow the tree flowers." Here is...
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... owns. The effects of slavery have destroyed her family, community and even freedom. Therefore, she focuses on color because it is her own experience and the happiness she feels from pondering color is her own.
Works Cited
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Marcus, Brad. "Diamond Back." Panel discusses Toni Morrison's Beloved. 04 Dec. 1998. Diamond Back Newspaper . 18. Oct. 2001.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Plume Printing, 1987.
Robinson, Mary and Fulkerson, Kris. Cliffs Notes Morrison's Beloved. Fster City: IDG Books Worldwide, Inc., .
3 Trudier Harris, Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison (Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1991) 116.
Davis, Cynthia A. "Self, Society, and Myth in Toni Morrison's Fiction." Contemporary Literature 23.3 (1982)
In this essay, I will discuss whether euthanasia is morally permissible or not. Euthanasia is the intention of ending life due to inevitable pain and suffering. The word euthanasia comes from the Greek words “eu,” which means good, and “thanatosis, which means death. There are two types of euthanasia, active and passive. Active euthanasia is when medical professionals deliberately do something that causes the patient to die, such as giving lethal injections. Passive euthanasia is when a patient dies because the medical professionals do not do anything to keep them alive or they stop doing something that was keeping them alive. Some pros of euthanasia is the freedom to decide your destiny, ending the pain, and to die with dignity. Some cons
"Morrison, Toni." Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000. <http://encarta.msn.com> 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. (accessed on September 26, 2001)
The African American families in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon present abnormality and dysfunction. Normalcy, seen in common nuclear families, is absent. The protagonist, Milkman, is shaped by his dysfunctional relationships with parental figures.
Davis, Cynthia A. "Self, Society, and Myth in Toni Morrison's Fiction." Contemporary Literature. 3rd ed. Vol. 23. N.p.: University of Wisconsin, n.d. 323-42. JSTOR. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. .
Berret, Anthony J. "Toni Morrison's Literary Jazz." College Language Association Journal 32.3 (March 1989): 267-83.
Wyatt, Jean. “Body to the Word: The Maternal Symbolic in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” PMLA, Vol. 108, No.3 (May, 1993): 474-488. JSTOR. Web. 27. Oct. 2015.
Morrison, Toni. "Recitatif." New Worlds of Literature: Writings from America's Many Cultures. 2nd ed. Eds. Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter. New York: Norton, 1994. 210-225
Literature: From Faulkner and Morrison to Walker and Silko, American Literature Readings in the 21st Century. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. Print.
In Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, Morrison uses universal themes and characters that anyone can relate to today. Set in the 1800s, Beloved is about the destructive effects of American slavery. Most destructive in the novel, however, is the impact of slavery on the human soul. Morrison’s Beloved highlights how slavery contributes to the destruction of one’s identity by examining the importance of community solidarity, as well as the powers and limits of language during the 1860s.
Morrison, Toni. "Recitatif." New World of Literature: Writing From America's Many Cultures. 2nd ed. Eds. Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter. New York: Norton, 1994. 210-225.
Morrison portrays how African Americans have houses, but not actual homes. Haven, the first settlement, and then Ruby both fail to live up to their names due to their racist and sexist ideologies which do not respect the borders established by the townspeople. These communities, based on a utopian ideal, are not homes because the racial ideologies that the inhabitants of Ruby sought to escape, but actual follows them within their hearts and minds. As in much of Morrison's work, racist ideologies transform "domestic" sites into racialized spaces due to the racism and sexism built around their fundamentals. Paradise thus testifies to the difficulties of building an existent home within the idealized settlement.
People believe physicians should be able to aid in this process because they have valuable knowledge on how the body works, “… knowledge that can be used to kill or to cure” (Callahan 74). This argument contradicts the moral meaning of medicine. Indeed, the word "medical" comes from the Latin word “mederi,” which means "to heal." Medicine is understood to heal, cure, or comfort people, not kill. As a matter of fact, in the International Medical Code of Ethics and the American Nurses Association’s Code of Ethics fully states that the act of euthanasia violates their role and shall not be performed. Just because of the mere fact that physicians have the knowledge and medical equipment to kill does not indicate a physician should be permitted to perform euthanasia. Dan Brock states, “… permitting physicians to perform euthanasia, it is said, would be incompatible with their fundamental moral and professional commitment as healers to care for patients and to protect life” (77). Dan Brock also raises the question, if euthanasia became a common practice that was performed by physicians, would we eventually fear or lose trust in our physicians?
Her parents moved to the North in order to get away from the southern racism. Toni Morrison had a lot to say about racism in a recent interview with Gabby Wood from the Telegraph in April of 2015. Morrison stated that, “Race is the classification of a species. And we are the human race, period. But the other thing – the hostility, the racism – is the money-maker. And it also has some emotional satisfaction for people who need it. Slavery moved this country closer to the economy of an industrialised Europe, far in advance of what it would have been. They don’t stop and frisk on Wall Street, which is where they should really go”. Throughout this interview, Morrison also talks about the significance of family, and bringing up her two sons on her own. This is significant because the theme of “family” plays a big role in the story of Beloved. Morrison’s ex-husband was originally from Jamaica, exposing her to rich African culture. Morrison is not afraid to be vivid and real in her writings when it comes to this idea. Morrison never uses a white person as her main character. “In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate”, Morrison says during an interview in 2009. Morrison tried to live her life like the white people weren’t there. Through Beloved, Morrison can show us what kind of destruction these slaves went through during their lives and what it truly means