Toni Morrison Research Paper

Published in 1987, Beloved is the most acclaimed work of Toni Morrison. The author was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for this novel. Besides, Beloved, in 1993 the writer won the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was the first African American woman to be honored with this award. Upon receiving the Nobel Prize, Morrison stated that she always insisted to be called a black woman writer and, more importantly, she admitted that as an African American woman, she experienced discrimination first hand. Besides, in her writing, she aims at fighting with “national amnesia” because she does not want to allow the memory of slavery to be forgotten (Iatsenko, 2014: 58). Beloved is the novel in which past and present often overlap. The characters retell stories from the past referring them to their current situation. The novel is written from many points of views and, that is why, the fragmentation of events presented is easily noticeable (Page, 1995: 134). Philip Page argues further that the novel’s power lies in its “patterns of circularity” as well as “overlapping consciousness” (Page, 1995). In juxtaposition with this argument, Susan Bowers states that “Beloved is a novel about collecting fragments and welding them into beautiful new wholes” (in Page, 1995: 134). This argument is supported by another researcher, Marianne Hirsch, who writes that the novel presents “a cyclical reunion between the mother and

The novel Beloved is a work of literature so compelling, readers must allow themselves to submit to the author’s literary genius in order to understand her message. Toni Morrison destroys the barrier that is censorship in African American history by giving account to real life events through fiction. The novel is raw and uncut, and leaves the reader with a new perspective on society. Morrison acts as an advocate for racial and social equality, and the importance of accurately represented history. She also explores gender perspectives and the roots of humanity itself. Morrison’s use of symbolism is, although bold, subtly powerful and gripping. These symbols in the text give dimension to the characters and allow

Toni Morrison is an author that is interested in showing the world the constant struggle of African-American men and women. Like Milkman, Morrison was born in 1931 during the height of racism in the United States. She has lived through the same events as Milkman and has experienced the pain and turmoil forced upon African Americans. Like Milkman, Morrison was also unaware of the racial tension in the country until she was a teenager. She graduated from high school with honors and attended Howard University as an English major. This explains Morrison’s interest in the theme of Flight in her works. She has been determined to be successful since she was a child, despite the racism and poverty she had experienced. Morrison is a strong, independent, successful, and talented woman. She focuses on the theme of feminism in her works to show both men and women of all races and ethnicities that women can be just as powerful as men. She has integrated pieces of her life into the novel, almost creating a mini- biography. Constant themes occurring in Toni Morrison’s Song Of Solomon are Marxism, Feminism, and flight.

            Toni Morrison has written several novels, many of which show the influence of existentialist thinking; however, Beloved and The Bluest Eye both strongly illustrate all of the major existential themes. Beloved is a novel about a woman, Sethe, who escapes from slavery with her children. She is haunted both physically and psychologically by her experience, as evidenced by the scars she carries on her back from a severe beating, and the scars she carries in her mind from the horrible treatment she suffered. A few weeks after her escape, Sethe's owner hunted her down to reclaim her as his property. Under the fear of capture, Sethe decided that for her children, death

Toni Morrison is the author of such a mysterious but exhilarating book Sula (1973). Growing up she love to story-tell and read; leading her to become a professor and editor at many places and universities. Also, winning a Noble Prize for Literature in 1993 for many of her phenomenal works that provide powerful depictions of the world that Black people currently or use to live in (America). For example, the novel Sula; Toni Morrison writes this story to be about a friendship in its most tremendous form - not two women as friends, but two women as an individual, unknowingly sharing almost everything. She also covers many events that involve suffering within a community and many different relationships.

Toni Morrison, the infamous novelist, took the stand as a concerned citizen of the United States when she wrote a public letter to presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama. At the time, the country was divided with contrasting opinions on George W. Bush, which seemed to block the focus of the candidates’ elections. Morrison mentioned this issue as one of her reasons for writing the endorsement, when she wrote, “One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this one one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril.” Morrison addressed her personal thoughts on the two presidential candidates, and gave reasoning as for why she chose Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton. Overall, Morrison created a very concerned tone regarding the United States and its political future, using phrases such as “multiple crisis facing us” and “peril” to describe the issues that faced the country. Furthermore, when describing Obama’s political future, the tone was much more optimistic and light. Morrison used phrases such as

The Nobel Prize for Literature is an outstanding prize that honors extraordinary people for their works in literature. It honors people that have changed literature. On October 13, 2016 you awarded Bob Dylan with the Nobel Prize in Literature. This marks him as the first musician ever to win this prize. Many people agree with your decision, while others are not delighted with this fact. I agree with the committee to honoring Bob Dylan with the Nobel Prize in literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

The author dedicates the novel to the blacks that suffer due to slavery. In Beloved, the characters gain equality yet they are still oppressed. Toni Morrison’s style and theme connect with her intention to remind readers about the slaves in American history and portrays her values.

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago and grew up in Illinois, the only girl in a family of seven. Cisneros is noted for her collection of poems and books that concentrate on the Chicana experience in the United States. In her writing, Cisneros explores and transcends borders of location, ethnicity, gender and language. Cisneros writes in lyrical yet deceptively simple language, she makes the invisible visible by centering on the lives of Chicanas, their relationships with their families, their religion, their art, and their politics. Toni Morrison, born as Chloe Anthony Wofford in Ohio in 1931 changed her name because it was hard for people to pronounce it. She was the

Toni Morrison brings another surprise to the story of Beloved. The addition of character Beloved conceals whole meaning Morrison tries to conduct to the readers. So far, character Beloved is portrayed as an innocent, pure, yet egotistic girl. Beloved also presumably the incarnation of Sethe’s dead baby, whose tomb is engraved Beloved. Morrison offers supernatural element in the story to create mysterious and spooky atmosphere, which raise curiosity and excite readers even more.

African-American author Toni Morrison, in her novel, Beloved, explores the experience and roles of black men and women in a racist society. She describes the black culture which is born out of a period of slavery just after the Civil War. In her novel she intends to show the reality of what happened to the slaves in the institutionalized slave system. In Beloved, the slaves working on the Sweet Home experiences brutality, violence, torture and are treated like animals. Morrison shows us what it means to live like a slave as she sheds light on the painful past of African-Americans and reveals the buried experiences for better understanding of African-American history. In the story of Beloved, special importance is given to the horrors and tortures of slavery to remind the readers about the American past. Morrison reinvents the past because she does not want the readers to forget what happened in African-American history.

     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

The author of Recitatif, Toni Morrison, is an acclaimed writer known for her fictional stories and her explorations within the black community. Receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 was one of her most acclaimed accomplishments. Morrison’s American Midwest family had an unfathomable appreciation and love for black culture and showed this through there many traditions and storytelling. Recitatif, a fictional short story, was written in 1983.

Toni Morrison conveys her strong feelings in her novel about slavery depicting the emotional impact slavery has had on individual mainly the centered character Sethe. The protagonist of the novel is unable to fully prosper in life due to resentment and the ability to move on from her past experiences. In Morrison’s story, since 1873 slavery was abolished for ten years in Cincinnati, Ohio. By the author choosing this setting it had a great impact on the reader like myself. “I didn’t see her, but a few times out in the fields and once when she was working indigo. By the time I woke up in the morning, she was in line”(Morrison1). Not being able to sustain a relationship with others because loved ones were constantly snatched from her presence, making it impossible for her to acquire a chance to feel loved especially by her mom. The text Beloved is related to events that occurred during the Civil War indistinguishable to the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act. Once this act was passed, slave owners in the south took this opportunity to reclaim any slaves that escaped from their ownership. When Sethe was enslaved she had experienced the unbelievable cruelty of slavery.

Beloved is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel written by Toni Morrison and published in 1987. The story follows Sethe as she attempts to make peace with her present (for her, post Civil War America) and her past as a former slave and the atrocities she suffered at the hands of the "benevolent" Gardner family. Information given to the readers from different perspectives, multiple characters, and various time periods allows her audience to piece together the history of the family, their lives, as well as provide insight into slavery and the aftermath as a whole. The characters feel as though they discover more and more as the novel passes in time, just as history unfolds. Critically this novel is recognized as one of the greatest works on