LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 17:2 February 2017
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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The Legacy of Slavery in Beloved

M. Mareeswari, M.A., B.Ed. M.Phil.


Abstract

Morrison is an outstanding feminist figure in American Modern Literature. All her novels indicate a complete understanding of her character’s individual response to the dilemmas posed by racial and sexual identity. The central theme of Morrison’s novels deals with the black women characters who are raised from their poor, down trodden and most humiliating position to a new sense of awareness of freedom, liberty and equality in their society. The novel pictures the physical and psychological effects of slavery not only upon women but also the community as a whole. Through the characterisation of Sethe, she brings out the full human meaning and implications of the slave experience. Sethe reflects the harsh reality of being a black mother. Morrison probes deeper into the psychological effects of missing mother-infant bond and unearths the psychological damage of slavery to the mother-child relationship. The novel points out love as the solution to overcome Sethe’s trauma of killing her daughter and her wounds of slavery. The love and acceptance of Paul D and the assistance of the white indentured servant Amy Denver are other representations of love that are crucial to Sethe’s possibilities to become a whole individual. Love can also be regarded as the cure to heal the post-slavery racial conflicts. Sethe and Beloved are also to be regarded as symbolic representations and rescuers of the African-Americans from the wounds of slavery. Toni Morrison has made her female protagonists speak not only for themselves but for their whole lot.

Keywords: Toni Morrison, legacy of slavery, Beloved

Realistic Picture of Black People

Beloved is based on an actual incident she came across in a news clipping which offers a realistic picture of the black life. She found it while editing a collection of articles and images called The Black Book in 1974. It contains advertisements chronicling the life of African people in the United States from slavery through the Civil Rights Movement of 1964. Indeed, on the tenth page of The Black Book is a copy of a news article entitled “A Visit to the Slave Mother Who Killed Her Child”, which narrated the incident of a slave woman Margaret Garner, a Kentucky slave. In 1850, she attempted to kill her children because she did not want them to suffer as she had in her life. Morrison chose to write on this theme probably because of a feeling that the living conditions were still equally oppressive even at the time of writing the novel. The mother’s act was an act of love and courage though it was criminal in the eye of law. “I took and put my babies where they’d be safe” (Beloved 164). The novel revolves around this incident and its consequent effect upon the mother whose heart is at times filled with a sense of guilt and remorse. It makes the past unspeakable. The mother who kills the child in the novel is Sethe and her mother-in-law is Baby Suggs. Morrison has invested the narrative with something of the folklore and Biblical allusions, which add layers of meaning to the narrative.

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

M. Mareeswari, M.A., B.Ed. M.Phil.
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Sri Kaliswari College
Virudhunagar Main Road
Sivakasi 626123
Tamilnadu
India
amkartheeswari@gmail.com
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