{"id":71,"date":"2021-06-22T19:03:05","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T19:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/?page_id=71"},"modified":"2021-07-07T17:53:35","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T17:53:35","slug":"toni-morrison-beloved","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/toni-morrison-beloved\/","title":{"rendered":"Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Past Lingers<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_160\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/americanmasters\/womens-list-toni-morrisons-introduction-film\/5489\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-160\" class=\"wp-image-160 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/06\/Net_Morrison-1-300x223.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/06\/Net_Morrison-1-300x223.jpg 300w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/06\/Net_Morrison-1-768x572.jpg 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/06\/Net_Morrison-1-624x464.jpg 624w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/06\/Net_Morrison-1.jpg 950w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-160\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toni Morrison (Timothy Greenfield-Sanders)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Toni Morrison\u2019s novel\u00a0<em>Beloved\u00a0<\/em>tells the story of a formerly enslaved woman named Sethe, suffering with her family in 1873 from a \u201ccurse\u201d set on their Cincinnati home by her dead infant daughter. Years ago, Sethe had killed her daughter to absolve her from enslavement.\u00a0 She referred to her as \u201cBeloved\u201d on her tombstone. This excerpt comes from the opening of the novel.<\/p>\n<p>The excerpt introduces Sethe\u2019s other daughter, Denver, her husband\u2019s mother, Baby Suggs, and her two sons, Howard and Buglar. The opening also details how their house was possessed and how it affected each of them.\u00a0 These early allusions are sometimes hard to decipher but the writing is always vivid.\u00a0 Morrison describe how Baby Suggs passed away, \u201csuspended between the nastiness of life and the meanness of the dead, she couldn\u2019t get interested in leaving life or living it.\u201d As a slave, Baby Suggs had lost many children, \u201cfour taken\u201d she remembers, and \u201cfour chased.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_162\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/movieactors.com\/actors\/oprahwinfrey.htm\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-162\" class=\"wp-image-162 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/06\/oprah-winfrey-beloved-2-300x147.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"147\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/06\/oprah-winfrey-beloved-2-300x147.jpg 300w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/06\/oprah-winfrey-beloved-2.jpg 533w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-162\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oprah Winfrey as Sethe in Beloved, 1998 (movieactors.com)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Morrison drew inspiration for Sethe from the true story of Margaret Garner who escaped slavery in Kentucky with her children in 1856, only to be hunted down in Ohio.\u00a0 Cornered by slave catchers, Garner killed one of her infant children and was desperately preparing to kill others before she was stopped.<\/p>\n<p>In this opening excerpt, Sethe experiences deep regret and sorrow. She always seems to think she could have done more. Was this how the novelist imagines the horrible cycle of American slavery?\u00a0 Morrison seems to be suggesting that even the enslaved experienced terrible guilt themselves over their inability to protect their own families.\u00a0 It is chilling in this case to ponder how slavery destroyed everyone\u2019s innocence, even the victims.<\/p>\n<p><strong>By Nick Rickert<\/strong><\/p>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-71-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/07\/Podcast.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/07\/Podcast.mp3\">http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/files\/2021\/07\/Podcast.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>Excerpt from\u00a0<em>Beloved<\/em> by Toni Morrison, read by Nick Rickert<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Past Lingers Toni Morrison\u2019s novel\u00a0Beloved\u00a0tells the story of a formerly enslaved woman named Sethe, suffering with her family in 1873 from a \u201ccurse\u201d set on their Cincinnati home by her dead infant daughter. Years ago, Sethe had killed her daughter to absolve her from enslavement.\u00a0 She referred to her as \u201cBeloved\u201d on her tombstone. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-71","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}