Oct 03, 2011 03:26 PM
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Through ‘Beloved’ Toni Morrison raises a very important question, which could have varying answers. The Question is: Is death justified to overcome sufferings and pain? ‘Beloved’s lead character Sethe kills her 13 year old daughter so that her daughter doesn’t have go through the agony that Black women had to go through during the times of Slavery. Going by religious literature or general view, we can assume that death can never be the answer. But as they say, ‘ Koi na samjhe peer parayi’ (No one can really understand the sufferings of someone else), none could really understand the mindset of Sethe when she was left with no option but to kill her children. Was she justified? Have your own take of ‘Beloved’ and decide for yourself.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Toni Morrison – winner of Nobel Prize in Literature, 1993 – is an American writer and a professor of Humanity in Princeton University. She has written around 10 novels which include the works like ‘The Bluest Eye’, ‘Song of Solomon’, ‘Paradise’ etc.. Beloved is her longest as well as the best known work. Beloved is her first book that I have read and might be the last one too, as I found it hard to relate to her style of writing and themes of most of her works.
ABOUT THE STORY: Based in the world of 1870’s just after the American Civil War, ‘Beloved’ tells the tale of Sethe and her daughters, Denver and Beloved. After the hard and agonizing life of slavery, Sethe escapes the farm called ‘Sweet Home’ alongwith some others but loses her husband in the venture. Alone and pregnant, with lots of troubles and fear of capture, but with help of a white woman who helps her in delivering the girl, Denver; she travels to a free place in rural Ohio, wherein she meets her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs – already freed – and starts to live there at 124 Bluestone Road, Cincinnati with her mother-in-law and her 4 kids.
She has a short period of peaceful and content life - only worry being absence of her husband and wait of his arrival. But when a posse arrives from Sweet Home to retrieve her and her children under the Fugitive Slaves Act; she kills her daughter ‘Beloved’ and was about to kill kids too, before being stopped. After this incident life at 124 becomes miserable and desolate; in time to come, Baby Suggs dies, two boys leave the place and never come back, neighbors stops visiting the house; for the house, 124 at Bluestone Road, is no more a place of celebration but a haunted house possessed by the ghost of dead daughter ‘Beloved’.
After 18 years or so, when Paul D – one of Sethe’s fellow slave at Sweet Home - arrives at 124, Sethe and Denver endeavor to rebuild their lives with Paul D. He helps them to move forward and leave the past behind. He brings familiarity at 124 and drives out the ghost of Beloved. But it turns out to be a momentary relief as ‘Beloved’ comes back at 124 in physical form of a young girl; soon she have Sethe and Denver under her spell and compels the Paul D out of 124. What Beloved has in mind is revenge and that involves taking Sethe to her world. Will she succeed?
When Sethe realizes Beloved to be her dead daughter, she begins to spend carelessly and spoil Beloved out of guilt. Soon they go out of money and food. Denver - shy, friendless, and housebound- reaches out and asks for help from the neighbors. Will they forgive the sin Sethe committed years back and reach out to help her? Read ‘Beloved’ to know.
ABOUT THE BOOK: It might seem - from the elaborate way in which I covered the story - that I have revealed it all. But ‘Beloved’ is not only about the tale of Sethe; that’s just one aspect of it; what has made ‘Beloved’ Author’s best work is its brilliant coverage of Slavery and its aftermaths and is named by many as ‘The Chronicles of Slavery’. It begins from Sethe’s life in 124 and moves, now and then, into her past and present life; and that aspect is brilliantly used by Morrison to cover both sides of the slavery era in USA – Pre and Post. If it’s about slavery it is a lot about Freedom too.
“When she stepped foot on free ground she could not believe that Halle knew what she didn’t; that Halle, who had never drawn one free breath, knew that there was nothing like it in this world. It scared her.”
Narrated from a 3rd person’s point of view it changes its perspective from the view point of its chief characters, but mostly it is told from Sethe’s angle. Language is mostly simple but has many words specific to Black Community of USA of those days, so it takes time to get adjusted. Its close to 300 pages long and could be a bit short. It’s hard to relate to for people not belonging to Black community.
First published in 1987, ‘Beloved’ won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. It was adapted in 1998 into a film of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey. In 2006 a New York Times survey of writers and literary critics ranked it as the best work of American fiction of the past 25 years. Its based on the true story of African-American slave, Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in 1856 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, and later killed her daughter to escape her from the posse.(Wiki)
For blacks ‘Beloved’ is a story that will always remind them of their tragic and dreadful past of slavery; for them it’s a book that should never be pass on and read for the pain and suffering it emits out; but from another perspective, Beloved is also a book that should be pass on and read by all for the way it covers the History of slavery in America.
LAST WORDS: Word ‘SLAVERY’ in itself depicts pain and suffering and, since the story is about a woman; consider the effects to be double fold. So, I do recommend ‘Beloved’, but for the readers of serious literature and those who are interested in the history of Slavery; there are no light moments in here, no fun. Beloved is about sufferings and pain and is not a story to pass on.
P.S. Few more extracts from the book are given in the comment section for better idea of book’s theme and writing style of the Author
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Take Care and Keep Writing
VIKKY GURAL
PYAR HUMEIN PHIR MILAAEGA...
