Beloved
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| Photo by Maria Oswalt on Unsplash |
I wanted to focus on an amazing novel that was written by Toni Morrison for this week's critical analysis. The novel Beloved is one of the novels I've read for an English course and I thought that this novel fits perfectly for this critical analysis. A general summary for those who have not read the novel, it revolves around Sethe, a former slave, who is tormented by her past and encounters the incarnation of one of her daughters whom she killed. Beloved, the unnamed daughter that Sethe killed, torments Sethe to understand the reason why Sethe killed her. It was later revealed in the novel that Sethe had meant to kill all of her children to prevent them from going into slavery.
The overall message that Morrison was trying to give was that slavery psychologically affects a human being. Throughout the novel, readers are given flashbacks of Sethe's many horrific memories while she was a slave. The flashbacks ranged from when she was beaten while pregnant and her breast milk being stolen to her being raped. I thought that given that this novel has strong ties to slavery, it made me think of the Black Lives Matter movement. The novel gives readers a clear message that Sethe had dealt with so much trauma and it was because of her skin color.
Connecting both the novel and the movement, both are related due to racism. The novel shows that Sethe is human and after all of her traumatic experiences, all she wanted to do as a mother was to protect her children and make sure they didn't go through what she went through. Black Lives Matter revolves around making sure that Black lives are not discriminated against under the law. Racism is a big problem in our society and it has been around for decades. We should not stop talking about how wrong it is until changes are made.
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| Beloved cover; Source; Wikimedia Commons |
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Hello Jsmejia,
ReplyDeleteWas not totally expecting the novel to end in the grimmest fashion over dying to avoid a potential faith rather then live to try to get into a better life. Where the black lives matter movement easily lines up with this novel in showing the traumatic past and the mind set on how some members of the community can feel. Hopefully there will be future administrations that are able to better help the BLM movement to push forward some help.
Best,
Treb
Hi Jsmejia,
ReplyDeleteI have not read this novel, but I thought that the summary that you provide was good and makes me want to read the book. The theme of the black lives matter movement is definitely shown in this novel and the theme is still present in today's world. This novel sounds like a novel that the whole world has to read because it makes such a great impact, and is similar to the movie "remember the titans" and the novel, "the color purple." Both of these arts promote the idea the black people should be treated equal, as a society, people need to be informed about this issue and should make an effort to change.
Jsmejia, I thought that your blog post was, not only interesting to read, but also very important and prevalent to today's society. So many people today feel that because slavery no longer exists, in its traditional form, that African Americans are not still suffering the repercussions or that racism no longer exists, which are completely false. I think that you did a good job of discussing an issue that is so important to so many people today and I like how you compared this novel to the BLM movement.
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