The Trauma Of Slavery 's Beloved

During the mid-1800s, it was challenging being a slave. Belonging to another human being instead of being free brought numerous hardships African Americans had to endure. It brought about unimaginable pain, frustration, disruption, and stress. In America, slavery was glorified, even though, families were separated and destroyed. Slavery made it tedious to have stability in families because of the effects it had on the African American people. After reading “How Affected African American Families” and “Narrative of Jenny Proctor,” slavery caused African American families to cope with separation, unfair marriage stipulations, horrible living condition, mistreatment and labor, and also the ending of slavery.

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.

Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a genius piece of literature that stands out from the others. Following its publishing date in September of 1987, it was rewarded with a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction only a year later. This novel holds an abundance of literary merit for numerous reasons but the main one being that it combines the powerful forces of history and literature into a pure work of art. Not only does this book display vivid historical accuracy in the perspective of a slave during the Reconstruction era in the United States, but the language that explains this particular situation is rich in figurative language and challenges readers line by line.

Slavery’s dehumanizing restriction on slaves’ emotions and intellect is clear as Douglass explains the common practice of separating young children from their mothers to destroy slaves’ first account with affection.1 Douglass demonstrates, in this moment, that the fundamental practices of slavery are to restrict its victims understanding of love to create heartless, mindless laborers. This process begins by stripping innocent children from their mothers, as a means strip enslaved children of their humanity. Furthermore, the emotionally numbing nature of enslavement can be seen through Douglass learns of his mother’s death and is minimally afflicted by it.2 The very thought that a person could be left unmoved by their own mother's death is devastating, Fredrick Douglass's lack of

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

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.

Slave Women in Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Toni Morrison's Beloved

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.

Toni Morrison’s Beloved shows the dehumanization of slavery and its effects on African-Americans and their basic forms of existence—specifically motherhood. Morrison depicts the strong maternal bond between Sethe and her children. Most importantly, her use of Sethe’s controversial act of infanticide shows the lengths that Sethe will take to protect her children from slavery. Morrison’s depiction of Sethe’s motherhood shows how slavery has deconstructed the Eurocentric expectations and traditions of motherhood and gender for black women. Rather than victimize Sethe’s as an enslaved woman, Morrision decides to celebrate her triumphs and suffering in Beloved. Therefore, Sethe’s identity as an enslaved black mother deconstructs the expectations of Eurocentric gender roles with her exertion of independence and control for the benefit of her children.

The film Beloved was released in 1998 to mixed reviews. The movie, based on Toni Morrison's novel, tells a ghost story from an African American perspective. It takes place only a few years after the abolishment of slavery, with the traumatic scars still fresh and unable to be healed. In the film the protagonist, Sethe, is revisited by the ghost of the daughter she murdered eighteen years earlier. I shall argue that her daughter, Beloved, is the embodiment of the trauma of the African American experience of slavery. In order to support this claim, I will explain what constitutes historical trauma in film, how historical trauma is specifically represented

    The maternal bond between mother and kin is valued and important in all cultures.  Mothers and children are linked together and joined: physically, by womb and breast; and emotionally, by a sense of self and possession.  Once that bond is established, a mother will do anything for her child.  In the novel Beloved, the author, Toni Morrison, describes a woman, Sethe, who's bond is so strong she goes to great lengths to keep her children safe and protected from the evil that she knows.  She gave them the gift of life, then, adding to that, the joy of freedom.  Determined to shield them from the hell of slavery, she took drastic measures to keep them from that life.  But, in doing so, the

Throughout the novel Beloved the “harmful effects of slavery” theme is used numerous times to showcase how debilitating they can be. The physical scars left from being whipped during slavery are discussed, especially pertaining to Sethe. Sethe’s husband, Halle, went insane after witnessing her being assault by schoolteacher’s nephews. The killing of Beloved by Sethe is a direct result of her fear of her children enduring slavery. Slavery has left has had a negative impact on most of the characters in the novel.

During slavery, African American men and women were subject to cruel labor and punishment throughout the Americas. They were beaten, abused, and forced to toil for long hours, burdened with the weight of an astronomical workload. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, she is able to capture this aspect of slavery by identifying gender roles and the effects of slavery on laborers. The narrative tells the story of a runaway slave named Sethe who has found freedom in Cincinnati after escaping Sweet Home plantation in the South. Throughout the novel she suffers from her past and is haunted by the peculiar death of her unnamed baby. Through characters like Sethe, Morrison is able to show the function of gender in slavery as well as the damaging

Beloved (1987) is a sensitive novel written by Toni Morrison a renowned Afro-American author. It deals with the forgotten era of slavery and the pathos of black slaves. The novel tells a wrenching story of a black female slave, Sethe, who kills her own daughter to protect her from the horrors of slavery. Morrison has excelled in creating her female characters. Her novels show a deep sense of bonding between the female characters. In Beloved the female bonding and the multiple layer of meaning in their relationship makes the story emotionally appealing and according to Barbara Schapira in Contemporary Literature it is the story that, “penetrates perhaps more deeply than any historical or psychological study could, the unconscious emotional and psychic consequences of slavery.”(194). The story touches the social, psychological, philosophical and supernatural elements of human life.