Monday, March 19, 2012
Beloved Review
This weekend I read a Beloved review. The author of the critique said that they thought the book was extremely well written. However, they did not approve of the story that Toni Morrison based her book off of. The review said that Morrison based her story off of a slave woman named Margaret Garner who in 1856 was accused of murdering her child rather than have her being captured and enslaved. The critic said she couldn't approve of the inspiration of Morrison's novel no matter the motive. I'm not sure if this is true, but I found the review very interesting.
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5 comments:
I think you're kind of right. Morrison mentions Garner in the forward but then she says, "The historical Margaret Garner is fascinating, but, to a novelist, confining. Too little imaginative space there for my purposes." So i think she got some inspiration from Garner, but largely created her own Sethe.
I think the story Morrison chose to base her book off of shows how dire the situation of the slaves really was. The idea of a mother killing her children so they wouldnt grow up in slavery is very stirring. Garner and Sethe wanted to protect their children from a fate worse than death which is slavery. I think this aspect of the book is espicially moving.
I don't get why someone would get offended by the use of the that story. This book is really graphic, realistic, and gives a clear picture of what was happening. A lot of authors based their work off of stories or instances that have happened
Honestly, I could care less about the actual story that Morrison based her book off of. The powerful message that Morrison is trying to convey cannot be represented in just one murder. Slavery was much bigger than that. I agree with what Shaina says. One single murder did not create a lasting image on the minds of people during her time, so she had to bring out the true meaning behind it. So she may have exaggerated a few things, but I think that she absolutely had to.
I also agree. Garner's situation was similar to many runaway slaves at the time, who felt that it were better for their children to die than to undergo the pains of slavery. I agree with Parker that I don't really understand why someone would be offended by using that story as an influence, especially since Morrison wrote it so beautifully and powerfully. If she hadn't used this story, people would probably not know that this actually occurred.
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