Beloved: The Novel By : Toni Morrison

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Beloved The Novel By Toni Morrison

• Presentation By
• Sheena Monds
• Edited by Dr. Picart and Donna Gallagher

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Key Terms and Themes

• Scarring
• Motherhood
• Slaverys effects on the individual and family
• The Role of Memory
• Storytelling
• The Role of Dance
• Personification of Beloved
• Magical Realism and the Supernatural

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Background and Overview

• Beloved, a book set in Ohio shortly after the
  Civil War, tells the story of Sethe and her
  struggle--not only escape slavery, but also to
  escape her past. Sethe's character is loosely
  based on the story of Margaret Garner, a woman
  who arranged for her children to be smuggled away
  from the plantation where she was enslaved, then
  escaped her captors. However, Garner made
  headlines in 1856 when the owner of her
  plantation pursued her in hiding. Rather than
  submitting herself, and more importantly her
  children, to the unimaginable cruelties of
  slavery once more, Garner took her four children
  to the woodshed and killed them. Like Garner,
  Sethe also attempts to kill her children in the
  woodshed, one fateful day when her former owner
  finally catches up with her and comes to take
  them all back to the plantation. Sethe, however,
  succeeds only in killing her three-year-old
  daughter, Beloved. Years later, Beloved will
  revisit her, and Sethe will have to come to terms
  with her haunting, careful reconstruct her own
  "rememory," and confront the painful memory of
  her past.

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Morrisons Style

• Fragmentation-
• Magical Realism
• In her novels, she focuses on the experience of
  black Americans, particularly emphasizing black
  women's experience in an unjust society and the
  search for cultural identity. She uses fantasy
  and mythic elements along with realistic
  depiction of racial, gender and class conflict.

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Significance of Scarring

• What is the significance of scarring?

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Scarring as Identification

• How are scars used as identification?

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Scarring as Self Definition

• How is scarring used as self definition?

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Scarring as Communication

• How is scarring used as Communication?

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The Supernatural Magical Realism

• Definitions of Magical Realism

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Discussion Question

• Based on the previous definition of Magical
  Realism, in what ways could Toni Morrisons novel
  be defined as a Magical Realist text? Use
  specific examples.
• there is a contemporaneous quality to time past
  and time present as well as a sense that the
  lines between reality and fiction, truth and
  memory have become inextricably blurred".

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Slavery Destruction of Identity

• Alienation of the Self
• Effects of Possession on the human psyche.
• Slaves as commodities Questions of Value and
  Self worth
• Slaves as complicit in their own oppression.
• Examples Paul D., Sethe, Baby Suggs, Stamp Paid,
  Denver, and Beloved.

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Slavery Destruction of the Family

• Give some examples of how slavery destroys the
  family?

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Beloved A Personification of the Past
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Beloved A haunt of Slavery
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Beloved Dance
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Discussion Question

• In your opinion, what purpose does dancing serve
  in the novel?
• Possible Suggestions to consider
• A form of release
• A form of expression
• A form of storytelling
• A form of communication