A Quick Glance At Slavery And Racism In Beloved By Toni Morrison
Resul BAKIR
Assoc. Prof. Christina
Cultural Studies IDE 545
10 December 2014
A Quick Glance at Slavery and Racism in Beloved by Toni Morrison
“Are those who act and struggle mute, as opposed to those who act and speak?” (Spivak, 70)
Although it seems impossible for a normal person to accept such an idea of killing her own child, it would be a better idea to focus on the actual purpose of killing the baby in an atmosphere full of slavery and racist and also sexist attitudes. By cutting her child’s throat, she is in an effort of taking and putting her children where they would be safe in such a society where the slavery was in practice. For her, this is the only and ultimate way of expressing her deep inner feelings as a subaltern but the …show more content…
By asking her nephews to describe her human characteristics, he is degrading and dehumanizing the black people. He says “No. No. That’s not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the left, her animal ones on the right” (Morrison, 228). So he reduces Sethe and slaves in general to sub-humans. He thinks himself as a scientist who investigates another spices. And for him, slaves can not be human beings but animals at best, as an inferior species. Another example is the one in which he uses his string to measure her body parts. Sethe says “Schoolteacher’d wrap that string all over my head, cross my nose, around my behind. Number my teeth” (Morrison, 226). Of course this act of physical measurement becomes a form of oppression. Here the Subject sees the Object as an experimental animal to be observed, examined and …show more content…
“Reconstruction of Black Identity and Community in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and The Bluest Eye.” Academia.edu. 4 December 2014. 8 December 1993. <http://www.academia.edu/2508139/Reconstruction_of_Black_Identity_and_Community_in_Toni_Morrison_s_Beloved_and_The_Bluest_Eye>. Ghosh, Nabarun. "Toni Morrison 's Beloved: A Subaltern Study." The Criterion: An International Journal in English 3.3 (2012): 2-5. The Criterion. Web. 3 Dec. 2014. <http://www.the-criterion.com/V3/n3/Nabarun.pdf>.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1987.
Omar, Sharif Chowdhury, and Tanusri Dutta. "Mother or Monster: A Postcolonial Study of the Two Pathological Women in Postcolonial Literature." International Journal of English and Literature 4(5).2141-2626 (2013): 210-16. Academic Journals. Web. 6 Dec. 2014. <http://www.academicjournals.org/IJEL>.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” 1 December 2014 <http://www.mcgill.ca/files/crclaw-discourse/Can_the_subaltern_speak.pdf>.
TheBestNotes.com Staff. "TheBestNotes on Beloved". TheBestNotes.com. 4 December 2014. 14 May 2008
Assoc. Prof. Christina
Cultural Studies IDE 545
10 December 2014
A Quick Glance at Slavery and Racism in Beloved by Toni Morrison
“Are those who act and struggle mute, as opposed to those who act and speak?” (Spivak, 70)
Although it seems impossible for a normal person to accept such an idea of killing her own child, it would be a better idea to focus on the actual purpose of killing the baby in an atmosphere full of slavery and racist and also sexist attitudes. By cutting her child’s throat, she is in an effort of taking and putting her children where they would be safe in such a society where the slavery was in practice. For her, this is the only and ultimate way of expressing her deep inner feelings as a subaltern but the …show more content…
By asking her nephews to describe her human characteristics, he is degrading and dehumanizing the black people. He says “No. No. That’s not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the left, her animal ones on the right” (Morrison, 228). So he reduces Sethe and slaves in general to sub-humans. He thinks himself as a scientist who investigates another spices. And for him, slaves can not be human beings but animals at best, as an inferior species. Another example is the one in which he uses his string to measure her body parts. Sethe says “Schoolteacher’d wrap that string all over my head, cross my nose, around my behind. Number my teeth” (Morrison, 226). Of course this act of physical measurement becomes a form of oppression. Here the Subject sees the Object as an experimental animal to be observed, examined and …show more content…
“Reconstruction of Black Identity and Community in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and The Bluest Eye.” Academia.edu. 4 December 2014. 8 December 1993. <http://www.academia.edu/2508139/Reconstruction_of_Black_Identity_and_Community_in_Toni_Morrison_s_Beloved_and_The_Bluest_Eye>. Ghosh, Nabarun. "Toni Morrison 's Beloved: A Subaltern Study." The Criterion: An International Journal in English 3.3 (2012): 2-5. The Criterion. Web. 3 Dec. 2014. <http://www.the-criterion.com/V3/n3/Nabarun.pdf>.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1987.
Omar, Sharif Chowdhury, and Tanusri Dutta. "Mother or Monster: A Postcolonial Study of the Two Pathological Women in Postcolonial Literature." International Journal of English and Literature 4(5).2141-2626 (2013): 210-16. Academic Journals. Web. 6 Dec. 2014. <http://www.academicjournals.org/IJEL>.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” 1 December 2014 <http://www.mcgill.ca/files/crclaw-discourse/Can_the_subaltern_speak.pdf>.
TheBestNotes.com Staff. "TheBestNotes on Beloved". TheBestNotes.com. 4 December 2014. 14 May 2008