Race and the American Novel Part 2: Beloved Critical Commentary

Identity

          In his essay, "Is Hell a Pretty Place?  A White-Supremacist Eden in Toni Morrison's Beloved," one point author David Cosca argues is that the lack of information and communication given (or not given) to African Americans during slavery worked to break them down emotionally, psychologically and contributed greatly to the lasting effects of slavery.  Cosca believes, "whatever the reality of history is-and the point is, really, that we cannot know with any certainty, due to both the period which these events took place and the indifference of those who were transporting kidnapped humans across the Atlantic [...]  Morrison's text also urges us to understand the consequences that this history has had on the society that we live in, and portrays that this sense of historical loss can cast a shadow on not just one generation, but on an entire society over several hundred years." (Cosca 12)  In other words Cosca is saying that wanton neglect and nearly a complete lack of documentation during the slave trade ripped away the history of an entire people, and left them without the hope, because without a family, who will help you?  Cosca notes that Beloved, "portrays the perceived necessity of obscuring the familial relationships between slaves, both as a means of making slaves feel alienated and as a means to attempt to eliminate natural feelings of love and affection between family members." (Cosca 11)  This relates to the way slaves were bred like livestock and their children were forced into slavery (often times being taken far away never to be heard from again), so slave owners discouraged families among slaves to weaken emotional bonds and reduce trust between slaves.  Cosca believes one reason we still deal with this issue today is because, "society endeavors to obstruct the propagation of stories and facts that reflect shameful and humiliating aspects of the history of our society, but which are easier or more comforting for many people to dismiss, ignore, repress, or revise." (Cosca 10)  I agree with Cosca, the disturbing lack of documentation, records, or first person accounts of slavery, combined with an insight into the ways slaves were isolated, alienated, and dehumanized is another way African Americans were brutalized, and does not portray the United States in a very positive light, and because our society would rather not talk about that "unpleasant" part of history these issues endure today.  

          I think Cosca raises a good point that shows up repeatedly throughout Toni Morrison's Beloved, and helps me empathize with the main characters.  All of the characters in Beloved have a less than traditional view of families, and share some of their experiences and memories throughout.             Sethe offers a vague memory of her mother while talking with Beloved, "You mean my Mother?  If she did I don't remember.  I didn't see her but a few times in the fields and once when she was working indigo.  By the time I woke up in the morning, she was in line. [...]  She must of nursed me two or three weeks-that's what the others did.  Then she went back in the rice and sucked from another woman whose job it was." (Morrison 72)  The casual manner with which Sethe discussed these horrific memories is heart breaking, and to think that this detachment from familial bonds was intentionally forced onto African Americans is unbelievable and unforgivable.  If I saw my mother hanging from a tree mutilated, I would have a lot of very strong feelings, and would probably harbor emotional memories.
          Having spent the majority of her life within the institution of slavery, Baby Suggs holds an equally distorted view towards family.  She recalls her own children, "The last of her children, whom she barely glanced at when he was born because it wasn't worth the trouble to try to learn the features you would never see change into adulthood anyway.  Seven times she had done that [...] All seven were gone or dead.  What would be the point of looking too hard at that youngest one? (Morrison 163-164)  Baby Suggs also is pretty casual about a pretty traumatic situation( she never would have been able to get any kind of closure good or bad), and is a prime example of the way slaves were bred like livestock, and the detachment they felt towards their families.  It was imposed not only by the slave owners, but probably also as a sort of macabre defense mechanism of an oppressed people. It makes me wonder how many times a heart can broken before a persons mind and spirit is lost.
           Even though she was born outside of the institution of slavery, Denver is still a victim of its after effects.  Denver remembers what little education she was able to obtain, "She was seven, and those two hours in the afternoon were precious to her.  Especially so because she had done it on her own and was pleased and surprised by the pleasure and surprise it created in her mother and her brothers.  For a nickel a month, Lady Jones did what whitepeople thought unnecessary if not illegal: crowded her little parlor with colored children who had time for and interest in book learning." (Morrison 120)  Denver was leaps and bounds ahead, because she learned to spell and count.  Slaves were usually put to hard labor and for generations were forced to use their backs and not their minds, so education was generally not a part of a their life, and did not value "book learning" very much.  The slave owners on the other hand discouraged education among African Americans as another way to keep them complacent without a means to help themselves or each other.
          Out of context, these stories, feelings, and memories would be hard to empathize with, but with all this context, even a woman who kills her baby with a hand saw can be redeemable.

Works Cited:
Cosca, David. "Is Hell a Pretty Place?  A White Supremacist Eden in Toni Morrison's     Beloved." Interdisciplinary      Humanities 30.2 (2013): 9-23. MLA International Bibliography.Web. 5   May 2015.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. 1st Vintage Intl ed. New York: Vintage Book, 2004. 
     Print.