Here is the master mix for all three of Heidkamp’s periods:
That’s a lot of musical poetry! Let the defenses begin!
If you are into period solidarity, you can access the period-specific playlists here:
Period 1
Period 2
Period 8
Day: December 5, 2019
“Beloved” and the Power of Perspective
Throughout “Beloved” Toni Morrison intentionally provides possibly limited but illuminating points of views. The stories of struggles and triumphs are told almost selectively from the perspective of former slaves and their relatives. While some may argue that it limits the scope of the story, I think it is important to hear the story from the lion’s perspective instead of the hunter’s. Through the textbooks that circulate our country’s public school systems, we are desensitized to the atrocities of slavery. These books often sugarcoat the horrors that took place on many plantations during the era of slavery. Until reading this novel, I had never heard of a “bit” or many other forms of systematic torture of slaves. Slavery was almost primarily discussed through the scope of civil war. We were taught that it was a divisive topic between the north and south, but rarely were we taught about the slave’s lives stuck in between the Union and Confederacy. That is why Morrison’s utilization of perspective is so essential. This novel, while fictional, gives a voice to a underrepresented community.
Morrison also shows the reader how dangerous the hunter’s perspective can be. While Sethe and Baby Suggs tell their own stories of escape, Sethe’s infanticide is told through the perspective of the schoolteacher. This perspective spreads to all of Sethe’s neighbor, essentially ostracizing her from her own people. Those that knew what happened didn’t care for Sethe’s reasoning. They didn’t care that Sethe did it to protect her infant daughter from a fate worse than death. They only cared about the story of a mother killing her child in cold blood. That is why the hunter’s narrative is so dangerous in isolation. If left unchecked, inaccurate information spreads like wildfire until the lion’s point of view is eradicated.
Is “Beloved” a Ghost Story?
In reading “Beloved,” a question arose in my mind. Is “Beloved” a ghost story? Clearly, there is a ghost or spirit of some sort in the form of Beloved. While Beloved is a spirit, what was Morrison’s motive to include a ghost in a story about post-slavery America? While one of Beloved’s main purposes is to haunt Sethe, what more does she represent?
There are a lot of questions there. But in my opinion, “Beloved” is not a ghost story. Personally, I think to call it so is simplifying Beloved as a character. To call “Beloved” a ghost story is to overlook many important events in the novel. As readers, we see many different time periods and events throughout African-American history throughout the book. We see a newly post-slavery United States through the “present” eyes of Sethe and Paul D. We also get to see flashbacks of Sethe’s and Paul D’s back to Sweet Home and slavery. We even get flashbacks to Sethe’s childhood and her mother, who spoke a different language, where Sethe would have been around people who could’ve remembered the middle passage. Morrison uses Beloved to fill some of the gaps missing in this history. As readers, we get vivid, horrible, brutal images of the middle passage through Beloved’s description. This is a part of the history that would not have been included in the story otherwise, but is very important in understanding the history of slavery in America. Beloved is also the one who asks Sethe so many questions about Sweet Home, providing the reader with more information about Sethe’s experience as a slave. Although Morrison could have found other ways to delve into Sethe’s past, Beloved is a natural and interesting tool that Morrison can use in order for us as readers to learn more about Sweet Home.
In this way, I think Beloved as a character serves a much larger purpose than just to be a ghost in the story and haunt Sethe. For this reason, to call “Beloved” a ghost story is a bit of an insult to the book because it holds so much more than that.
Story Power 