Baby Suggs Dichotomy

Toni Morrison’s main purpose of animal imagery throughout Beloved is to more deeply connect the underlying question of self-identity that African Americans experienced as a result of slavery. This question specifically relates from the widely accepted subhuman treatment of African Americans in the South even years following the emancipation of slavery, and it provides a deeper understanding of the brutal dispositions of white slaveowners. Characters in Beloved, including Sethe, Stamp Paid, and Paul D, who have directly experienced this type of animalistic dehumanization as former slaves find themselves frequently question their own fundamental self worth and identity. Through constant abuse and antagonization, these slaves unavoidably accept themselves as subordinate to animals. This sentiment derives from several instances throughout the novel where these characters directly confronted with comparisons to animals as a result of this sub humane treatment by former slave owners. Toni Morrison uses animal imagery to more effectively emphasize the relation between the brutal and dehumanizing experiences in the South with the actual barbaric dispositions of white slave owners.

Toni Morrison’s Beloved tells the story of ex slaves struggling to define themselves in their now free life. However, their traumatic experiences with slavery have left the characters cracked; they have been damaged to the point where they are only fragments of a true free person. The corruptive nature of slavery shines through these cracks in the characters, highlighting the fact that their experiences with slavery continue to fragment their personalities despite being free. This begs the question: can ex slaves truly be as “free” as a person who was never a slave? As shown by the ex slaves’ struggle to define themselves, Morrison argues that, compared to a free man, the ex slaves can never be truly free.

In Toni Morrison's Beloved, the Black literature author touches upon tough subjects such as slavery, the affects of slavery, and the cruelty that is brought by it. For a person to be cruel, they commit inhumane crimes against a victim or victims that ultimately dehumanizes them. This concept displays itself several times throughout the novel, depicted through the characters that represent not only the "sixty million and more," but also the broken system of a slavery-ruled society, effectively showing the affects of such heinous crimes. In Beloved, the community commits cruel acts to characters such as Paul D, Denver, and Sethe, prompting them to act cruely themselves.

“What is racism? Racism is a projection of our own fears onto another person. What is sexism? It’s our own vulnerability of our potency and masculinity projected as our need to subjugate from another person…” Gary Ross’s breakdown of the age-defying constructions of race and sexism exemplify how fabricated standards can take a toll on the well-being of individuals. American novelist Toni Morrison is renowned for her publications illustrating how racial stigma can dent a character physically, mentally and emotionally. “Sweetness”, an excerpt from God Help the Child, one of Morrison’s more recent works, follows the narrative of a guilt-stricken mother who allowed society’s predetermined notions of race interfere with her parenting, as her daughter was undeniably black while she and her husband have negro roots but are lighter skinned or ‘high-yellow’. As the story develops, it is obvious that the narrator, Lula Ann’s mother feels some sort of resentment for mistreating her child and holding her back from experiencing a blissful childhood like other youngsters, but is too shameful to admit it. With time, tables turn and Lula Ann, Lula Mae’s daughter is able to regain her self-esteem, moves away, builds a career, and is preparing to settle down with a family of her own and change her miserable fate given to her by her parents. Morrison successfully translates the destructive effects of prioritizing racial constructs through varied elements including: characterization, point of

As Morrison progressed as a writer one can definitively view her evolution not only as a writer but as a thinker. In Sula, the reader can view an author who is quintessentially confused by the system of segregation. Specifically, one could contrive that Sula is Morrison’s attempt to examine the aspects in which segregation helped cement African-American culture, but once America was desegregated the same communities that were empowered by oppression were decimated by the white communities’ extraction of African-American culture. Whereas within Love, one can view a Morrison not content with African-American proliferation under the banner of segregation, but hatred for the powerful individuals of the community that reinforced the system of segregation and oppressed their own community in the effort to gain not only money, but power. As one thinks about the multi-faceted layers of segregation within Toni Morrison’s writings, one can view a political activist who felt content in her youth, rationalizing the evils of this world, yet in the present an enraged woman content with not only the removal of white prosperity within segregation, but African-American elite prosperity upon the literal blood of African-American

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

The horrors of slavery of are unspeakable and unspeakable for good reason. The slaves were brutalized and dehumanized, their lives and dignity subject to the whims of their white masters. While the desire to forget this terrible history is understandable, without remembering the past, humanity is rendered incapable of moving forward. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, these unspeakable horrors and histories are given a voice and form, easier to confront and face. While Sethe, the main character of Beloved, may have escaped her enslavement in the Sweet Home plantation, she is unable to escape her history. Her memories, or ‘rememories “ as she calls them, continue to haunt her, at time literally, and prevent her from recovering from her past.

These same trends of forcibly broken familial bonds are mirrored in other accounts of slavery, such as Toni Morrison’s novel,

Morrison’s critically acclaimed novel Beloved probes the most painful part of the African American heritage, slavery, by way of what she has called “rememory” -- deliberately reconstructing what has been forgotten.

In the book, Beloved, the author, Toni Morrison, writes about the memories of the past effecting the present. The masters of the slaves thought for the slaves and told them who to be. The slaves were treated like animals which resulted in an animal-like actions. Furthermore, the shaping of the slaves,by the masters, caused a psychological war within themselves during their transition into freedom. The beginning sections display how savage and lost a person can become due to the loss of their identity early on in their lives as slaves.

Racism. Protests. Profiling. These three words are common buzzwords that are used in the United States media almost daily. They are used so often, some contend, that it has created a sense of apathy in the American public in regards to solving the age-old problem that has its roots grounded in slavery. Burns states, “[Toni] Morrison contends that the American history of slavery had been consciously “disremembered” so that it is conveniently shrouded by a comfortable state of national amnesia”. Likewise, in her novel the characters Sethe and Paul D in the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison also exist in a state of amnesia—but of their own slavery. In this essay, I will argue that in the novel Beloved, Toni Morrison use characters Sethe and Paul D and their willed forgetfulness of slavery and past actions to reveal the modern reader’s absent-mindedness of slavery and discussions of race.

Trauma has the power to warp one’s perception of themselves. Set in 1873, during the era of Reconstruction, Beloved, a historical fiction novel by Toni Morrison tells the story of Sethe, a strong-willed African-American woman who runs away from a life of slavery on the corrupted plantation known as “Sweet Home” in hopes of creating a better life for herself, and more importantly, her family. Throughout the novel, Sethe’s story is laid out through an elaborate structure of present day events and flashbacks as told from the first person point of views of the protagonist herself and subsequently through other major and minor characters. These shared memories document the trauma brought to the members of the African-American community as a result

Critical race theory “ is an academic discipline focused upon the application of critical theory a critical examination of society and culture, to the intersection of race, law, and power. Critical race theory is often associated with many of the controversial issues involved in the pursuit of equality issues related to race and ethnicity” ( Luis Tyson). The movement is loosely unified by two common themes. First, proposes that white supremacy and racial power are maintained over time, and in particular, that the past may play a role. Because of the experiences of slavery, most slaves repressed these memories in an attempt to forget the past. “This repression from the past causes a fragmentation of the self and a loss of true identity. Sethe, Paul D. and Denver all experience this loss of self, which could only be remedied by the acceptance of the past and the memory of their original identities. Beloved serves to remind these characters of their repressed memories, eventually causing the reintegration of themselves” (Sparknotes). Toni Morrison’s Beloved goes into the individual story that was captive, and their human responses to slavery through their voices. “The manipulation of language and its controlled absence reinforces the mental enslavement that persists after individuals are freed from physical bondage” (Emily Clark). Reading through a critical race lense in the novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison, the experience of minorities have given Sethe, Paul D, Baby Suggs, and

Toni Morrison’s novel Sula explores black female life and relations conceived both within and outside sexist and racist influences and mediation. Morrison explores individual characters defined by racial and gender stereotypes while also presenting a focused rumination on a radical black female experience devoid of these oppressive classifications. Through the character Sula, Morrison creates a black female identity based on subjectivity, uninfluenced by the community’s societal gender expectations and lifestyle. Even though Sula possessed self-agency and autonomy, never adhering to her community’s standards, her self-assertion remains solely outside the racist and sexist environment and black community; she ultimately holds power over herself but she is unable to assert that power in “Bottom” as she is suppressed and ostracized, contained by avoidance and being characterized as “devil” and “witch” until she dies contently, knowing she lived freely, yet alone (hooks 150). Morrison’s presentation of Sula’s ostracization as a direct consequence of her ability to constitute

Morrison's Beloved offers a non-linear perspective and a reshaping of the discourse of slavery. The identities of the characters in Beloved are recreated through dealing with and facing their past. Morrison not only reexamines and modifies the history of slavery; she also acknowledges the female African American identities in the cultural and societal contexts that were dominated by the white race. Morrison has said, "if we don't keep in touch with the ancestor . . . we are, in fact, lost" (Rushdy, 567). In order to keep in touch with the ancestor, Morrison adds, that it is essential to reconstruct memory: "Memory (the deliberate act of remembering) is a form of willed creation. It is not an effort to find out the way it really was-that is research. The point is to dwell on the way it appeared and why it appeared in that particular way" (Rushdy, 567). The concern of appearance and philosophy of conveyance is fractionally part of her project, stating we must, "bear witness and identify that which is useful from the past and that which ought to be discarded" (Rushdy, 567). Morrison uses one tragic and traumatic event, in this case infanticide, to set the story into a tone and context that is easily relatable and understood. As a result, the reader