Beloved
(Toni Morrison)
Abstract by: Wendy
Do you believe in ghosts? You just might after reading Toni
Morrison?s Beloved. Morrison earned the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1993 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for
Beloved. This is a powerful, well-written novel about a
subject that still haunts America: slavery.
Her baby girl, who died just after the family?s escape to
Ohio, is, years after the end of slavery, literally haunting
the main character, Sethe. The baby ghost stops tormenting
her mother and teenage sister, Denver, after the appearance
of Paul D, a man who lived on the same plantation from
which Sethe escaped. Then a mysterious young girl arrives at
Sethe?s house.
This sets the stage for Morrison?s evocative recreation of
the horrors of slavery and its effect on the characters
through a series of flashbacks. This structure makes the
story initially baffling, but it finally comes together like
the pieces of a puzzle. A bit of advice: Get two copies and
give one to a friend. This novel benefits from discussion.
At the center of the story are questions about familial
love. Can a mother love her children too much? What does
that love give her the right to do? What constitutes a
family?
Morrison does not take the easy way out with her characters:
the white people are not all villains and the black people
are not all saints. Beloved even touches on the relationship
between escaping slaves, Native Americans, and white
indentured servants.
Seeing slavery from the inside, as shown through the
characters in Toni Morrison?s Beloved, helps the reader feel
the emotional impact of slavery more effectively than many
history books on the subject.
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