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Slavery as Removing Humanity: Toni Morrison's Beloved
Set in the time of slavery, Toni Morrison's Beloved explores how the institution was not only physically abusive, but also emotionally and mentally damaging to those forced to endure a life of servitude. Slaves were treated as property and thus had their humanity ripped out of them under extreme circumstances. Slavery does not just lock up the body; it also locks up the mind so that even the individual cannot control their most inner thoughts and behaviors. In this sense, Morrison shows how slavery can be so damaging on a mental level as well as a physical one.
As an institution, slavery robs the individual of control over their own bodies and behaviors. Essentially, it removes their humanity and reduces them to the state of animals, rather than of rational human beings. They are treated as less than human and therefore internalize this treatment so that many come to believe it. The slaves cannot voice their own emotions because they have been removed from control over their own minds. The slaveholders do not care for the well being of their slaves and instead...
Baby Suggs expresses the sorrow of how horrible this feeling is when she states that "what you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leaveins instead. No, they don't love your mouth," (Morrison 104). In such an extreme situation, individuals loose their humanity and sense of self. It takes away the chance at living a normal life. Individuals cannot enjoy the simple joys of being human. Baby Suggs cannot be a true wife or mother, she is someone else's property and thus she has not part of herself to give to others.
Slavery takes away one's ability to control one's self. In this process, the inner sense of self is taken away as well. For example, Paul D. is so affected by his years of being controlled by others that he looses his grip on his own actions and behaviors. There is a point within the novel where he does not even know his own voice or when he is screaming. He hears the sound but is so far removed from controlling his actions that he is unsure…
Works Cited
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Knopf Publishing Group. 2007.
Clearly, color, specifically the color red, plays a significant symbolic role in developing these aforementioned central themes. At the most basic level, in a book that is primarily about slavery, color is a powerful theme as the colors of black and white divide society and is the entire reasoning for the conflicts of slavery. Even after emancipation, the colors of black and white continue to create conflict, as even Sethe
Slow, lingering death lies in the daily carnage of body and spirit- not only of her own, but more so with Tom's. And so on that night, before Steven came and start his abusing spree of the mother and child, Julie prepared a special dinner for her and Tom. She and her son then devoured a delicious bowl of meatball soup, mixed with insecticide. In a matter of hours,
Beloved is a contemporary novel with the appeal of a ghost story, a mystery, and a work of historical fiction. It is a complex literary work that pieces together a story line of complexity with descriptions of how African-American people were treated before, during, and directly after the Civil War. This beautifully written and Pulitzer-Prize wining novel examines three generations of women -- one who was born in Africa and
Beloved by Toni Morrison is a haunting, darkly beautiful and intensely moving novel that depicts the profound traumatic reality of slavery and its repercussions on one woman's life, her mental stability and psychological well-being, her ideas of and abilities in motherhood, her entire sense of self, even her basic humanity. Beloved tells the story of an escaped slave woman who, when faced with capture, slipped into a state of psychosis
"The best thing [Sethe] was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing -- the part of her that was clean" (250). She had been made to endure a lot which most slave women experienced during enslavement. They were brutally raped, used and beaten and often had to work as prostitutes. "I got close. I got close. To
Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood.... But it wasn't the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread....The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own. (Morrison, 198-199) The strong bond between Sethe and her children reflects