Toni Morrison: Rivalry And Irony

The beginning of the novel is the rivalry between Heed and Christine, middle part is showing a friendship that existed once to these two women as children and their deep feelings towards the end of the novel. The women try to come together and find out about this communication situation on why they are not friends. Christine asks “Was he good to you, Heed?...Mind you at eleven I thought a box of candied popcorn was good treatment. He scrubbed my feet til the soles was like butter.”( Morrison 186) The misunderstandings of being young and ignorant, having no one to explain important things in life to them leads to the characters living the life they have. She started blaming everyone for a lot of things that were happening around her. Having
this women May for a mother didn't help, so she wasn't such a mother to Christine. “So when things got bad I relied on May and you to explain it.”( Morrison 186) Communication is the key to making life work and educate people. As they age, they become more aware of some life decisions they made, why these women did not talk to each other, and now see why things went the way they did in their life from the decisions they made. The connection, affection, or dependance on someone is something to think about when figuring out why people stayed in certain situations good or bad like these characters. The many layers this novel gave us pushed the readers to think about their experiences of the different kinds of love either through marital, biological, or other forms. Even with in society, life styles decisions everyone endures, and how it is destroyed so fast. During the time period of the story racial, sexual, and inequality identities through The Civil-Rights Movement, and the lives of African American women are expressed which did not get better during the time period of the story. Love holds a strong bond with all these woman and consist of these characters trying to find their own identity. Abandonment is central in this novel with these female characters with them struggling to love in each female relationship from past to present. Betrayal is something that shaped each and every one of these female characters. The title of this novel, Love is named through the connecting relationships and unity of Heed, Christine, and Junior. The title of this novel is Love to show the African American female characters searching for love and certain parts of the novel told by “L” where her real name has to be Love like the novel.