Toni Morrison’s novel has received much attention in recent days in terms of political controversy over book bannings and the history of race in America. These issues are important, and discussion of them is certainly welcome in this class.
But the most important thing to keep in mind with respect to Beloved is that it is a great work of literature in the
American tradition. Its author was a highly learned student and teacher of literary
studies, and her novels (like all great literature) are in conversation with
previous writers and stories.
Beloved’s central theme is the
institution of slavery and its social, cultural, and political legacies. Like all
great stories, however, the book deals with universal human concerns: pain and loss,
alienation and uprootedness, hope and hopelessness, joy and redemption, growing up,
aging, death, birth, justice and injustice, family relations, betrayal, social
oppression, hatred, and love—including (and especially) maternal love.
The present of the story is the middle of the Reconstruction era (1865-1877), but the book explores the entire life of its central character, Sethe, who is loosely based on a real person, a black woman named Margaret Garner. Like Garner, Sethe is born into slavery, escapes, and when pursued across state lines by her “owners,” kills one of her children (and tries to kill the others) rather than return with them to her former life.
By making this act of murder an act of love—indeed, of maternal love—Morrison’s book is a powerful
indictment of what some historians have called America’s “original sin.” Yet it is
also a story of family, community, love, courage, and survival amidst great
suffering.