Content warning: Spoilers for “Beloved” (1987) ahead.
“Beloved” (1987) by Toni Morrison is the most transformative novel I have ever read.
Morrison’s words dove straight for my heart and earned a place among my favorite literature. She completely changed the trajectory of my interests in reading, turning my directions towards classics like “Frankenstein” (1818) and “Orlando” (1928).
In “Beloved,” Morrison crafts a beautiful, moving story full of intensely descriptive prose, play between first and third person – a writing choice not often used – and real, deep characters that fly off the page and settle into your heart. Her imagery is unique and illustrative, creating nuanced, genuine worlds that feel real and lived in.
To celebrate Black History Month, let’s dive into her writing and why it matters.
The Impact of ‘Beloved’
“Beloved” was the sixth book in my senior “AP Literature” reading list, and I waited excitedly for the moment we got to read it. I can safely say that my year-long enthusiasm yielded amazing results.
The novel follows the story of an escaped slave named Sethe who experiences a supernatural occurrence when her dead, unnamed daughter returns to haunt her and her surviving daughter, Denver.
Some of the most poignant moments come from Sethe’s mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, whose son bought her freedom. In one scene, she delivers a beautiful sermon to a clearing of African Americans, preaching the importance of self love in an era where white people only held scorn and hatred for them.
One aspect of reading that I love, that others might not understand, is to be confused by a piece of literature on my first read through.
I love asking important questions and feeling like a detective as I analyze the text deeper. With Morrison, the payoff is always well worth it.
Toni Morrison at Albion College
I am not the only one who found a passion for Morrison’s writing; Lauren Brown, associate professor of English at Albion College, teaches an entire course titled simply “Toni Morrison,” dedicated to Morrison’s novels and essays.
“I think the stories are perfect, but none of her characters are heroes, none of her characters are perfect, and in that way, they’re far more honest than other characters in literature,” Brown said.
Brown said that she wanted students with any relationship to Morrison to be able to have an entire semester to sit with her writing and dive into the overarching themes that stretch across her fiction.
“(Morrison) toes a line brilliantly in being able to show us things that are true and real and that we recognize in relationships among women, or in Black communities, or in parents and children, or in lovers or in childhood friends,” Brown said.
Who Was Toni Morrison?
Morrison was an influential African American woman, having won countless prestigious awards and becoming the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature before she died in 2019.
She began her higher education at Howard University, a historically Black university, where she witnessed segregation in the South while traveling with the university’s theater group, the Howard University Players.
After earning her degrees, Morrison pursued a career as an English professor. It wasn’t until she established herself professionally that she began to write. Once her first novels rose to fame, she began to write more and more, earning her place among the most influential writers of her time.
“She’s doing short stories, operas, children’s books, nonfiction,” Brown said. “She’s thinking about these bigger ideas and these more ideological frameworks and concepts.”
Within all of these diverse methods of storytelling, Morrison explores themes of love, racism, community, freedom and oppression. She weaves each of these themes together from story to story, making each a work of art in how they expertly work with each other to portray a detailed story of complex characters.
“She’s not writing for a white readership, and so her Black characters don’t need to be accountable to being perfect Black people, and her white characters are not entirely evil or easily vilified,” Brown said.
Challenges to Morrison’s Legacy
Morrison’s stories have inspired deep, intelligent conversations in educational spaces nationwide. However, in some school districts, “Beloved” and “The Bluest Eye” (1970) have been challenged by conservative advocacy groups for their “explicit” and “inappropriate” content.
Book banning as a whole is a very nuanced and deep conversation, but in the case of Morrison’s novels, they do not shy away from the more gruesome and uncomfortable parts of history that some people have difficulty facing.
“Part of the value of what Morrison is doing is her willingness to gaze directly at the very things that most of us would rather not look at all,” Brown said.
Books have the power to steer conversations toward change rather than regression. While some readers choose certain books as a way of escapism, Morrison’s novels are a way to learn more about the human condition directly through deep, complicated characters, where sometimes there is no villain to fight against or hero to root for.
“One of the reasons (Morrison’s writing) is timeless for us in the United States is because it will not let us off the hook that easily, and as readers, it’s demanding that we look at the things that we don’t want to look at,” Brown said.
Why Morrison Matters
Even though Morrison’s writing is raw and complicated and may seem intimidating to read, every single person from every walk of life can learn something from her masterful prose.
My goal is to eventually read every single one of her novels, ideally taking the “Toni Morrison” class with Brown my junior year. I want to take in as much of her beautiful writing as I can.
Morrison’s writing has opened my eyes to the ways that people completely different from me lead their lives, while also including moments that so many people can relate to. The power in her writing is that every person who reads it can learn something new about themselves, another group of people or how the world works.
Morrison teaches her readers these lessons through the use of absolute reality where no ugly parts are obscured. We learn from the ugly and difficult things more than anything else because life isn’t perfect all the time. She takes her readers on a journey with her characters as they are beaten down and find their way back up again.
As we head into Black History Month, it is more important than ever to remember our roots and sit in that uncomfortability because that is the only way we can move forward.
Leave a Reply