TONI
MORRISON

-

BELOVED

Toni Morrison

•

An

American

novelist,

editor, and professor.

Toni Morrison

– early life and career

•

Born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931, in Lorain, Ohio.

•

Grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s in a poor
family of a long history of migration. They left the deep rural
South to escape racism and find more opportunities in the
more industrialized, urban North.

•

She attended Howard University where she was awarded
her BA in English and continued her education with
graduate studies at Cornell University which she
concluded with a Master of Arts degree also in English.

•

She later returned to Howard to teach English.

•

In 1958, she married Harold Morrison, an architect from
Jamaica whom she divorced six years later.

•

In 1965 she became a senior editor at Random House, a
position that enabled her to bring the publications of African
American and Caribbean authors into the mainstream.

Toni Morrison

and her writing

●

As she became an editor she also began building a body of creative
work that, in 1993, would make her the first African-American
woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature for her novel Beloved.

●

At home she heard many songs and tales of Southern black folklore
Morrison´s works, therefore, deal with the black experience and
celebrate the black community.

●

Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and
richly detailed characters.

Among her best known novels are:
The Bluest Eye
Sula
Song of Solomon
Beloved

BELOVED

●

Beloved was published in 1987 and was a bestseller by many

regarded as Morrison´s most successful novel.

●

It was influenced by the true story of the African-American slave,
Margaret Garner, who temporarily escaped slavery during 1856 in Kentucky
by fleeing to Ohio, a free state, with her children and killed her two-year-old
daughter rather than allow her to be recaptured and ”suffer as she had
done“.

●

In Beloved, Toni Morrison:

-

Looks back to the era after the end of the Civil War and tells the story of
Sethe, a woman who had been a slave and who, after escaping from a
Kentucky plantation, comitted infanticide to protect her baby from a
lifetime of slavery, who later comes back to remind her of the times of horror

-

Intends to show the reader what happened to slaves working in a slave
system.

-

Depicts the emotional impact slavery has had on individuals and their
families

The effects of slavery on the characters of
Beloved

SETHE

the physical effects:



the scar of a tree on her back

“School teacher made one open on my back, and
when it closed it made a tree. It grows there still.”



The pain of her body after being raped and tortured



The pain of her feet after she runs through the woods

The psychological and spiritual effects:



killing of one of her own children



she lived an isolated life in the black community



being unable to create a love bond with a man



feeling dehumanized



the memories of the past make her daily life unbearable

and make her feel exhausted

The effects of slavery on the characters of
Beloved

HALLE (Sethe’s husband)

the physical effects:



He lost his life

The psychological and spiritual effects:



He went mad

PAUL D



alienation



becaming depressed



feeling insecure about his sense of self



emotional fatigue/pain

DENVER

- lives a secluded life

BABY SUGGS

-

feels alone

- ---

spiritual

fatigue

-

cannot move on with her life

 Slavery has lead to the break up of many families.

•

Baby Suggs

-

lost all of her eight

children due to slavery,
four children were taken
from her and four were
chased away.

•

Sethe

-

did not have any
parents

-

lost her husband when
she ran away to Ohio
trying to free herself

-

Killed her child Beloved

-

the ghost of that dead
child led to both of her
son’s running away.

THANK YOU !