Beloved

Beloved

Toni Morrison

“We are people, not aliens. We live, we love, we die.”

-Born Anthony Chloe Wofford on Feb 18, 1931 to George Wofford (sharecropper) and Ramah Willis Wofford

-Raised in a religious and nurturing environment full of feminists

-Graduated at the top of her class at Lorain High School in Ohio

-Taught at Southern University and Howard University

-Married Harold Morrison in 1957- bore two sons, Harold Ford and Kevin Slade

-Moved to New York where she served as textbook editor

-Wrote The Bluest Eye which was completed in 1968- the novel sold for “racial reasons-“ completed Sula in 1973

-Taught at State University of New York

-Served as lecturer until the publication of Song of Solomon in 1977- followed this up with Tar Baby

-Morrison became the first black woman featured in Newsweek

-Beloved- published in 1988

-1993- Won the Nobel Prize for literature

Purpose of Beloved:

-To demonstrate Morrison’s skill at looking into the unconstrained, unapologetic minds of numerous characters who were involved, directly or indirectly, with slavery

-To show admiration in the fact that slaves were able to function as well as they did in spite of the horrendous brutalization (physical and mental) of the entire system, particularly after freedom (high expectation, low achievement)

-Critics claims her writing is “blackfaced” and holocaustal soap opera writing, to which Morrison retorts, “It is not my job to make black people’s values acceptable to society as a whole.”

Morrison’s book is classified as 1. Historical fiction 2. Gothic horror

3. Bildungsroman, or coming of age literature

-Reviewers find quality and power in Morrison’s brutal, tender honesty

-Toni Morrison liberates and expands literature by escaping Eurocentrism. She describes the sorrows, elations, confusions, and most importantly the strengths of characters refusing to knuckle and cower in self- doubt

-Morrison is called “the conjure woman” because she...