Theme of slavery in Morrison’s Beloved

Introduction of the writer:

Toni Morrison was born in Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, Toni
Morrison was the second oldest of four children. Her father, George Wofford, worked primarily
as a welder but held several jobs at once to support the family. Her mother, Ramah, was a
domestic worker. Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, editor and
professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, exquisite language and richly detailed
African American characters who are central to their narratives. Among her best-known novels
are The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz, Love and A Mercy. Morrison has
earned a plethora of book-world accolades and honorary degrees, also receiving the Presidential
Medal of Freedom in 2012.

Introduction of the novel:

Beloved was first published by Toni Morrison in 1987, and the next edition was later published
in 1997. This novel is dedicated to the sixty million and more Africans who died in the Middle
Passage on the slave ship of America. This very novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988
despite some controversies. Beloved is a story about America's relationship with slavery, but it's
also a story about rebirth and redemption for those who seem irredeemable. Grand, right? Well,
that's just how Toni Morrison rolls.

Slavery as a theme in Morrison Beloved

Slavery is overarching theme of the novel, Beloved. Through the memories and experiences of a
wide variety of characters, Beloved presents unflinchingly the unthinkable cruelty of slavery. In
particular, the novel explores how slavery dehumanizes slaves, treating them alternately as
property and as animals. To a slave-owner like Schoolteacher, African-American slaves are less
than human: he thinks of them only in terms of how much money they are worth, and talks of
“mating” them as if they are animals. Paul D’s experience of having an iron bit in his mouth
quite literally reduces him to the status of an animal. And Schoolteacher’s nephews at one point
hold Sethe down and steal her breast milk, treating her like a cow.

In the novel Sethe did not mention or talk about the pain she had to endure, but she mainly
focused on the milk that had been taken from her which is vital to feed her baby:
 “They used cowhide on you? And they took my milk. They beat you and you were
pregnant? And they took my milk!”

She expresses her deep grief, as follows:

“Nobody will ever get my milk no more except my own children. I never had to give it to
nobody else—and the one time I did it was took from me—they held me down and took it.
Milk that belonged to my baby.”

Even seemingly “kind” slave-owners like Mr. and Mrs. Garner abuse their slaves and treat them
as lesser beings. Slavery also breaks up family units: Sethe can hardly remember her own mother
and, for slaves, this is the norm rather than an exception, as children are routinely sold off to
work far away from their families.

Another important aspect of slavery in the novel is the fact that its effects are felt even after
individuals find freedom. After Sethe and her family flee Sweet Home, slavery haunts them in
numerous ways, whether through painful memories, literal scars, or their former owner himself,
who finds Sethe and attempts to bring her and her children back to Sweet Home. Slavery is an
institution so awful that Sethe kills her own baby, and attempts to kill all her children, to save
them from being dragged back into it. The last scene of this horrible incident is depicted as
follows: “Two were lying open-eyed in saw dust; a third pumped blood down the dress of
the main one-- …”

Fuston-White stated that:

“It was not madness, but the reality of slavery, that drove Sethe to kill her child, fully
aware of the act and its brutality, as well as its compassion”.

Sethe’s husband Halle also got ruined as a result of slavery. In the novel it is implied that Halle
went mad after had had seen what happened to his wife Sethe. The helplessness of Halle over the
situation of Sethe has had such an affect on him that he lost his mind. Paul D describes Halle’s
situation as follows when he saw him with butter all over his face:
“I broke him, Sethe. Paul D looked up at her and sighed. You may as well know it all. Last
time I saw him he was sitting by the churn. He had butter all over his face”.

Through the haunting figure of Beloved, and the memories that so many of the characters try and
fail to hide from, Beloved shows how the institutionalized practice of slavery has lasting
consequences—physical, psychological, and societal—even after it ends.

Conclusion:

n this paper, attention is converged

upon discussion of
the inuence of slavery on the
collective past of the com-
munity and the memory of the
individual through the
experience of motherhood. Toni
Morrison has skillfully
delved into how the traumatic
collective past of the Blacks
and the heroine’s own memory leads
to distorted experi-
ence of motherhood. However, the
heroine succeeds in
overcoming these haunting
experiences through growing
awareness and forbearance. Toni
Morrison, in Beloved,
points out the necessity of new
beginnings and faith that
the Blacks should maintain in order
to live as free people.
Thus, Morrison has succeeded in
showing African Ameri-
can how to exercise the ghosts of
slavery and the horrible
In Beloved, Morrison intends to show the reader what happens to individuals in an
institutionalized slave system in which African Americans had to live in the past. Narrating the
story of Sethe, Morrison focuses on the dehumanizing effect of slavery by emphasizing
sufferings of salves. The novel shows us what happened to Sethe, her family and other slaves
working on the plantation. We saw that Sethe was mistreated and raped. After she tried to escape
from the plantation, she killed her baby and attempted to kill the rest of her children. Her
husband went mad and other slves had unfortunate lives. At the end of the novel Sethe became
mentally and spiritually exhausted and had no energy left to live a meaningful life. As a
conclusion, it is very obvious in the novel that slavery threatens the psychology and spiritual
world of individuals and causes horrific and brutal consequences.
n this paper, attention is converged
upon discussion of
the inuence of slavery on the
collective past of the com-
munity and the memory of the
individual through the
experience of motherhood. Toni
Morrison has skillfully
delved into how the traumatic
collective past of the Blacks
and the heroine’s own memory leads
to distorted experi-
ence of motherhood. However, the
heroine succeeds in
overcoming these haunting
experiences through growing
awareness and forbearance. Toni
Morrison, in Beloved,
points out the necessity of new
beginnings and faith that
the Blacks should maintain in order
to live as free people.
Thus, Morrison has succeeded in
showing African Ameri-
can how to exercise the ghosts of
slavery and the horrible
n this paper, attention is converged
upon discussion of
the inuence of slavery on the
collective past of the com-
munity and the memory of the
individual through the
experience of motherhood. Toni
Morrison has skillfully
delved into how the traumatic
collective past of the Blacks
and the heroine’s own memory leads
to distorted experi-
ence of motherhood. However, the
heroine succeeds in
overcoming these haunting
experiences through growing
awareness and forbearance. Toni
Morrison, in Beloved,
points out the necessity of new
beginnings and faith that
the Blacks should maintain in order
to live as free people.
Thus, Morrison has succeeded in
showing African Ameri-
can how to exercise the ghosts of
slavery and the horrible
n this paper, attention is converged
upon discussion of
the inuence of slavery on the
collective past of the com-
munity and the memory of the
individual through the
experience of motherhood. Toni
Morrison has skillfully
delved into how the traumatic
collective past of the Blacks
and the heroine’s own memory leads
to distorted experi-
ence of motherhood. However, the
heroine succeeds in
overcoming these haunting
experiences through growing
awareness and forbearance. Toni
Morrison, in Beloved,
points out the necessity of new
beginnings and faith that
the Blacks should maintain in order
to live as free people.
Thus, Morrison has succeeded in
showing African Ameri-
can how to exercise the ghosts of
sland the horrible