∆ Beloved ∆
- By Toni Morrison.
Written : early 1980's
Published : 1987
Genre : historical fiction
Setting : Ohio
Point of view : third person omniscient
[Durision] : American civil war ( 1861 to 1865)a part of novel , Black community area.
About the novelist :
Chloe Anthony wofford Morrison is known as Toni Morrison. Born in Ohio ,us ,she was an american novelist , essayist,book editer and college professor. She was awarded Nobel prize in literature in 1993.
{Notable works} :
1. The bluest eye(1970)
2. Sula (1973)
3. Song of Solomon
4. Tar baby (1981)
5. Beloved (1987) :-
•About the novel• :-
The novel beloved based on a real life incident of a slave mother who killed her own child.the institution of slavery destroyed much of the heritage of Africans brought to the America.
The book dedication reads sixty million &more referring to the Africans who died as a result of Atlantic slave trade. The novel beloved (1987 ) ,it was awarded Pulitzer prize for fiction in 1988.
• Summary of the novel beloved:-
In 1873, sethe in her daughter denver live in 124 ,a house in a rural area in Ohio city in US. it has been 18 years since the escaped from slavery at a form called "sweet home" run by a cruel schoolteacher .sethe fied although being pregnant and a white woman amy denver helped her delivery a baby, which she named Denver on her name. Before being tracked by old master she tried to kill her 4 children, but she succeeded in only killing the eldest baby girl. Rejected by her master for not being fit to serve. sethe lived with her three (3) children at 124. The house was hounted by the Ghost of a dead baby, howared and buglar the son of sathe left the home at the age of 13. Their grandma 'Baby suggs' died: she positive force in Cincinnati black community.
Two visitors come to 124, first is the paul D, he was a slave with set a back at 'sweet home'. And the second visitor is a girl named Beloved, she was unable to speak like on about dressed in strange clothes, and her presence is deeply destructive for 124. Denver informed everything to a group of woman led by Ella, a farmar agent of the underground railrood , they go to drive out (exercise) beloved 's ghost from 124. Ghost is forced to leave and now denver , sethe and Paul D will build a new life. Beloved is the spirit of dead body retuned but she is embodiment of all suffering under slavery. Ghost of beloved disappears , denver becomes a working woman of the community and emerges as an strong woman in the end.
•Characters of novel beloved•:-
1. Sethe
2. Beloved
3. paul D
4. Denver
5. Baby suggs'
6. Halle suggs'
7. Schoolteacher
8. Amy Denver
9. Howard& Buglar
10. Ella
11. Mr. and Mrs. Garner
12. Lady Jones
13. Stamp paid
14. Mr. and Mrs. Bodwin
15. Paul A ,paul F & sixo.
• Major character •
1.sethe :
The protogonist of the novel, is a proud and noble woman she insists on sewing a proper wedding dress for the Frist night she spends with helles and she finds schoolteacher's lesson on her " animal characteristics", more debilating than his nephews sexual and physical abuse although the community's shining of sethe and baby suggs' for thinking too highy of themselves is unfair , the fact that sethe prefers to steal food from the restaurant where she works rather than wait on shows that she does consider herself different from the rest of the blacks in her neighbourhood . yet, sthe is not too proud to accept support from others in every instance . Despite her independence (and her distrust of man). She welcomes paul D and the companionship he offers.
She was murdered her elder daughter cause of past crual slavery system of black community.
2. Beloved:
The eldest child of sathe which she killed.Beloved’s identity is mysterious. The novel provides evidence that she could be an ordinary woman traumatized by years of captivity, the ghost of Sethe’s mother, or, most convincingly, the embodied spirit of Sethe’s murdered daughter. On an allegorical level, Beloved represents the inescapable, horrible past of slavery returned to haunt the present. Her presence, which grows increasingly malevolent and parasitic as the novel progresses, ultimately serves as a catalyst for Sethe’s, Paul D’s, and Denver’s respective processes of emotional growth. although beloved vanishes at the end of the novel.
3. Paul D :
Paul D is a farmer slave who, like sethe used to live on the sweet home plantation in Kentucky ,Also like sethe. He come at 124, tries to make a life with sethe.
•Themes of the novel •
1. Slavery's destruction of identity.
2. Pain .
3. Mother and daughter relationship.
4. psychological effects of slavery.
5. Family and community.
6. Memories of past .
•The message of the novel•
The past should not be an impediment to the present. Slavery is on institution that dominantes the past of America, and represents the horro from which the modern nation whishes to rise above.
•Conclusion•
Beloved concludes with a group of women from the local community converging on 124 to ward off the ghost that has been haunting it. After Beloved disappears, Paul D returns to the house intending to make amends. He finds Sethe lying in the bed where Baby Suggs died, distraught by Beloved's sudden disappearance.
