An important intertext for Toni Morrison's Beloved is the slave narrative. In class, we went over the first page of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, one of the most celebrated memoirs detaling slavery from the inside in the United States. However, it's equally important to remember that there were a number of former slaves still alive in the United States well into the twentieth century--many of whom told their stories via oral narratives. For some fascinating stories about what it was like to live as a slave in this country, please check out these narratives collected by members of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) during the late 1930s. Keep these stories in mind as we read further in Beloved.
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This may seem jaded or ... irreverent, but how are we to understand Morrison as a writer focusing on slavery in the late 80s? For some reason I am having great difficulty separating the author from the text in Beloved... Just as I couldn't and wouldn't write a novel about the Holocaust, seeing as it is not my generation's event, nor even my parents', does anyone else think it strange that these are experiences Morrison has only experienced (I assume given her time line) second or third-hand?
This idea isn't well thought out at all, it's just a strange feeling I got when reading tonight... a wisp
I read a couple of the narratives and I found them not only interesting but disturbing. The way they speak becasue they were never allowed to become educated amazes me and I am greatful for my education. One man told a story on young girls being stripped down and whipped until they bleed. Once bleeding they would pour salt in the wounds. That really pulls the heart strings. I think is good to think ablout the blood shed in our past and be thankful that we are a free nation now with equal rights for everyone.
I think it is interesting to note the acting consequences that arise from the study of different historical reviews. Should we read Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. Dubois? Should we read Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr? Should we investigate the politics of Condoleeza Rice or eschew those for views more popularly, socially accepted to come from a black intellectual, like Jesse Jackson? George Orwell, in the novel, 1984 writes: "He who controls the past, controls the future; and he who controls the present, controls the past." This is a statement released by the "ministry of information," within his novel. What ministries of information today have shaped our perceptions of these issues, which in a social democracy, directly impact the way that we vote about that very same system?
The longest time that I spent within a school was in the predominantly African American district (Winton Woods). This greatly shaped my thoughts and feelings on the African American success story, and how it has borne a new chapter in American life, this past week in particular. I remember reading Toni Morrison's, "The Bluest Eye," in 11th grade, and finding it vulgar and afro-centric, and I read it a couple years afterward and was more affected by the narrative. Some of my views changed, and some didn't.
You're right, there is a lot of tension revolving around these ideas! -Good thinking, albeit.
I think it's important to consider that many of the narratives we have, be it Frederick Douglass or others, were created during the time of abolition and were designed to encourage the end of slavery. The difference with Beloved, even though it is fiction, is that Morrison writes it from an unfiltered perspective and with the benefit of a hundred years of hindsight. Although the story of Sethe is fiction Morrison manages to "rememory" the history of her ancestors. I think Beloved is just as valuable for its insight as any of the "true" narratives.
The CHRONIC -what- cles of Narnia:
http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2005/chronic-narnia-p1.php
I just thought it would be funny to post the Narnia rap from Saturday Night Live.
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