LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 19:12 December 2019
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Dehumanizing Aspects of Slavery:
A Critical Appraisal of Toni Morrison’s BELOVED

Riyaj Hussain

Beloved
Courtesy: https://www.amazon.com/Beloved-Toni-Morrison/dp/1400033411/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Beloved&qid=1576434053&s=books&sr=1-1

Abstract

Toni Morrison has built a permanent niche in the realm of African-American writings. Beloved which was published in 1987 is her fifth novel. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and Nobel Prize in literature. The novel articulates the sense of intense pain and suffering caused by the white master. She in this novel picturizes the unrelieved violence in all its manifestations like incest, rape, infanticide which were the dark consequences of slavery. She basically in her work strove to bring African- American experience. She in this novel delves deep into the psyche of the slave exploring the wide, frightening terrain of their thought process. This paper is a modest endeavor to shed light on certain issues like dehumanizing effect of slavery, gender discrimination, hyphenated identity of individuals and unceasing quest for freedom, happiness and self-discovery. A few other writers and poets like Alice Walker, Maya Angelou also deals with these issues, but Morrison has, perhaps, done the most detailed analysis of the concept of slavery. The novel is a saga of struggle of the slaves to arrive at authentic selfhood and freedom.

Keywords: Toni Morrison, Beloved, pain, violence, incest, infanticide, slavery, selfhood, freedom.

Introduction

Beloved is a classic in black literature. It is in fact an unbearably heartbreaking saga of reckless exploitation of the slaves. The intensity of torture that the white people had done to the black is unnarratable in words. She through this novel endeavoured hard to project the dilemma of the black African American people. She vehemently exposes in it the human prejudices. The novel is in the genre of slave narrative.

Slavery is the darkest period not only in the history of America but also in the history of entire mankind. With the publication of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, some of the burning issues such as slavery were raised in the forefront. Slavery is a very important part of the text.

The central character of the novel is Sethe. She has a daughter by the name Beloved after which the novel is named. Beloved is in the tradition of Afro-American folk narrative where we have the spirit of the dead child coming back to haunt the house. The spirit of Beloved is in a way the representation of the memory of the suppressed and repressed past as well as slavery. Beloved is a novel which is multi vocal because we have narratives from the point of view of multiple characters such as Beloved, Sethe, Paul D, Denver, Baby Suggs and Stamp Paid, etc.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Riyaj Hussain
Research Scholar, Dept. of English
Nagaland University
Kohima Campus, Kohima 797004
Contact – 6000968878
riyajhussain39@gmail.com
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