Beloved

1. Beloved Written by Toni Morrison Presentation by Jordan Clapper English 212 Instr. Stan Hunter Kranc

2. Toni Morrison? • I do not belong to an expected demographic that might read this book. • Then again, that might not be true. • I find slave narratives interesting, as well as black literature in general. • Morbid as it may sound, I am intrigued by the use of dead infants/children in literature. • Toni Morrison’s writing style is always a thrill for me.

3. The Question: How does the author establish a memorable narrative voice?

4. What Morrison Does • The narrative voice is relatively constant throughout the novel. • Third person omniscient • Though the omniscience can sometimes be questioned • Past-tense • There is one instance of a present-tense shift. • In Beloved, very vague at times, most of the time.

5. What Morrison Does cont. • The end of the second book is where the narration starts to fall to pieces. • This is due to both Sethe’s declining mental state and the general declining of what is natural and what is supernatural. • The narration shifts from third-omniscient-past to various first-present perspectives. • It seems that each of the main characters takes a turn narrating for a few chapters. • This is where Morrison does something unprecendented:

6. An Infant Narrates • To be more precise, a fully-grown reincarnated infant takes over the narration. “I am Beloved and she is mine. I see her take flowers away from leaves she puts them in a round basket the leaves are not for her she fills the basket she opens the grass I would help her but the clouds are in the way how can I say things that are pictures I am not separate from her there is no place where I stop her face is my own and I want to be there in the place where her face is and to be looking at it too a hot thing”

7. Continued • However, it becomes far more ominous. “I am Beloved and she is mine. Sethe is the one that picked flowers, yellow flowers in the place before the crouching. Took them away from their green leaves. They are on the quilt now where we sleep. She was about to smile at me when the men without skin came and took us up into the sunlight with the dead and shoved them into the sea. Sethe went into the sea. She went there. They did not push her. She went there. She was getting ready to smile at me and when she saw the dead people pushed into the sea she went also and left me there with no face or hers.”

8. In an Infant’s Words • “the place before the crouching” – the world of the living • “the men without skin” – white men coming to supposedly return them to slavery • “she left me there with no face or hers” – Sethe smashed Beloved’s head off of a post to kill her. Also, she could not afford a complete headstone for the infant postmortem. • “a hot thing” – one of the more debated phrases

9. What This Means • From this, we get a variety of narrative voices, literally voices. • She prevents information from the purest perspective, an infant’s. • She also presents it from the most selfish and primal of voices, also Beloved’s. • The first person narrations provide us with an even more personal look at the lives being depicted, when normally narrated in third.