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Title: Beloved
Author: Toni Morrison
Genre: Historical literary horror
Thingummies: 5
Synopsis: A former slave and her daughter are haunted by the ghost of a baby she killed to keep from being enslaved.
Thoughts: This book earned its Pulitzer and then some. Lyrical, heartbreaking, beautiful, and incredibly powerful, Morrison's novel tries to give voice to people who were denied voices and probably succeeds about as well as we'll ever be able to. The searing images remind us of exactly how horrifying slavery was, and why people would risk so much to be free. But it's the tiny details that make this ghost story a masterpiece.
There's more than enough horror here, half-obscured by people who don't really want to remember it. From the hole dug to protect the valuable belly of a pregnant woman while she is beaten so badly that the skin on her back is twisted into the scar of a "choke-cherry tree", complete with blossoms of pus to a runaway slave roasted alive to a chain gang forced to beg for their own sexual abuse, enough is hinted at to make anyone's stomach crawl. The things that are really heartbreaking, though, are the smaller details. The schoolteacher who teaches his students about opposing characteristics by having them list protagonist Sethe's "human" characteristics against her "animal" ones. The fact that Sethe is shocked at how fast her third child learns to crawl in freedom because her first two children, weaned in captivity, had not had anything but milk because she did not know they could have food until their teeth were in (and didn't have food for them anyway). Perhaps most devastating of all is the change dish kept at the abolitionist's house. He had fought for his entire life for freedom for slaves, risking his own life and freedom to help them escape, showering Sethe and her family with kindness. But this incredibly warm-hearted, enlightened man still keeps a ceramic black boy, on his knees, with his mouth open to form the bowl for change and a little placard emblazoned "At Yo Service". It's the casualness of the racism even from the people who dedicated their lives to helping black folk that's both shocking and shaming.
This story is only indirectly about the horrors of slavery, though. At its heart, it's the story of a woman forced to make and then live with an unbearable choice, and how her guilt slowly strangles her and her family. It's a beautiful story about decent people undone by pride and jealousy and shame, and how they come to move on despite their wounds. Here, too, it's the little things that make the novel--the ill-fated blackberries, the patched color quilt, the all-too-human snideness of the neighbors and their grudging rescue.
In the end, we can be relieved that such an inhumane (but still shamefully human) system has been dismantled. But Morrison does not let us pat ourselves on the back. Can we really say that we've eradicated racism just because we no longer breed other humans and beat them to death? Or are we still as blind as the old abolitionist, racist despite his completely noble intentions? How many of our practices today will our descendents look back upon us for and condemn us as savages? And on a smaller scale, how many of us allow our closest neighbors to suffer because we feel they somehow deserve it, for their pride, for their mistakes, for their failure to be sufficiently gratifying?
I'm afraid we already know the answers to these questions.
But while scars cannot be erased, they can be survived, and love can rekindle even in hopeless places. Beloved condemns us for our failings, for we have many and always will. But it answers that we can survive, and love, and hope despite them.
Author: Toni Morrison
Genre: Historical literary horror
Thingummies: 5
Synopsis: A former slave and her daughter are haunted by the ghost of a baby she killed to keep from being enslaved.
Thoughts: This book earned its Pulitzer and then some. Lyrical, heartbreaking, beautiful, and incredibly powerful, Morrison's novel tries to give voice to people who were denied voices and probably succeeds about as well as we'll ever be able to. The searing images remind us of exactly how horrifying slavery was, and why people would risk so much to be free. But it's the tiny details that make this ghost story a masterpiece.
There's more than enough horror here, half-obscured by people who don't really want to remember it. From the hole dug to protect the valuable belly of a pregnant woman while she is beaten so badly that the skin on her back is twisted into the scar of a "choke-cherry tree", complete with blossoms of pus to a runaway slave roasted alive to a chain gang forced to beg for their own sexual abuse, enough is hinted at to make anyone's stomach crawl. The things that are really heartbreaking, though, are the smaller details. The schoolteacher who teaches his students about opposing characteristics by having them list protagonist Sethe's "human" characteristics against her "animal" ones. The fact that Sethe is shocked at how fast her third child learns to crawl in freedom because her first two children, weaned in captivity, had not had anything but milk because she did not know they could have food until their teeth were in (and didn't have food for them anyway). Perhaps most devastating of all is the change dish kept at the abolitionist's house. He had fought for his entire life for freedom for slaves, risking his own life and freedom to help them escape, showering Sethe and her family with kindness. But this incredibly warm-hearted, enlightened man still keeps a ceramic black boy, on his knees, with his mouth open to form the bowl for change and a little placard emblazoned "At Yo Service". It's the casualness of the racism even from the people who dedicated their lives to helping black folk that's both shocking and shaming.
This story is only indirectly about the horrors of slavery, though. At its heart, it's the story of a woman forced to make and then live with an unbearable choice, and how her guilt slowly strangles her and her family. It's a beautiful story about decent people undone by pride and jealousy and shame, and how they come to move on despite their wounds. Here, too, it's the little things that make the novel--the ill-fated blackberries, the patched color quilt, the all-too-human snideness of the neighbors and their grudging rescue.
In the end, we can be relieved that such an inhumane (but still shamefully human) system has been dismantled. But Morrison does not let us pat ourselves on the back. Can we really say that we've eradicated racism just because we no longer breed other humans and beat them to death? Or are we still as blind as the old abolitionist, racist despite his completely noble intentions? How many of our practices today will our descendents look back upon us for and condemn us as savages? And on a smaller scale, how many of us allow our closest neighbors to suffer because we feel they somehow deserve it, for their pride, for their mistakes, for their failure to be sufficiently gratifying?
I'm afraid we already know the answers to these questions.
But while scars cannot be erased, they can be survived, and love can rekindle even in hopeless places. Beloved condemns us for our failings, for we have many and always will. But it answers that we can survive, and love, and hope despite them.
