Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, famous as Toni Morrison, was born in Lorain Ohio (USA) in a working-class family. Her parents were descendants of African-American who migrated from south. Toni did her B.A in English from the Howard University in 1953. For the quest of further erudition, she joined the Cornell University and attained her Master’s degree in English in 1955. She embarked on her literary journey by publishing her first book in 1970 namely “The Bluest Eye” and further persisted in her pace and commenced to publish further ravishing literature.
She further came with other intriguing works such as “Sula” in 1973 followed by another master piece “Song of Solomon” in 1977. Her works aptly delineate and emphasis the African-American experiences of the people and articulate the grisly and culpable facets of slavery and servitude for the black people. Toni Morrison passed away on August 5, 2019, leaving a deluge of prolific and monumental work for the readers globally. One of the most fascinating works of the (late) author was the fictional novel, Beloved (1987), which was also converted into a movie in 1998.
“Beloved” is one of her master pieces, which encapsulates manifold facets of the legacy of slavery and servitude. The title of the book is the name of an infant who was advertently decapitated by her mother to emancipate her from the scourge of slavery. However, her mother feels the presence of a girl who is the incarnation of her baby girl after years, whom she dastardly slaughtered from the fear of slavery. She finds that the girl had come to make her liable for slaying her mercilessly.
Albeit, the girl, Beloved, is unaware of the colossal burdens of the slavery in one’s life, but all she wanted was to hold her mother accused and a perpetrator. Meanwhile, her mother also commences to woo her in order to vanish the agony and guilt of killing her own children which later causes pernicious results in her physical, mental, and social health as well.
In a nutshell, the novel aptly encapsulates numerous aspects and aftermaths of slavery in African territory. It also implies the anguish of the black people who were crammed in containers and hauled away for slave labor. It depicts the ugly face of the white superiority who exploited the blacks for years. The book appropriately shows the scenarios of the reign when the black people where considered nothing more than mere slaves, bandits, or rapists. They always pondered that black people were despicable and savage. This collection precisely shows the obstruction in a mother’s life that how the life of slavery contrasts from a normal life of a white people. The author articulates that it was the slavery that compelled Beloved’s mother to kill her so as to protect her from the barbarism she herself confronted her whole life – and assumedly to be faced by her daughter.
Toni was very inclined to expose the murky legacy of the slavery in the United States from the 16th century onwards to the civil moment to halt the brutal reign. 1661 was the commencement of the legacy of servitude when African, as the slaves, were brought to the English colonies. It was practiced as a ceremonious thing in U.S where the slaves could be brought and sold.
They, the whites, were also permitted to do anything with the subjected slaves, including physical and psychological abuses along with the forced labor and separation from their families. This dehumanization of the slaves was considered to be the prerogative of the brutal slave-holders. Subsequently, this legacy was dismantled with the civil war for the emancipation from the scourge of slavery which proved to be very fruitful. And then, there began the abolition of the slavery, particularly, from United Sates in 1865, making way for a better society.
The writer has displayed the characters in a way which bridged the gap for understanding the curse of slavery in a white-dominated society. She is a must-read for her approach towards a world free from slavery of any form.
