There is a great connection between literary text and history. Critics who deal with this issue have provided four answers. Firstly, critics argue that literary texts have no time limitations and they are considered to be the universal history. Secondly, literary texts are produced within historical context but due to their literariness they are separate from this context. Thirdly, different literary texts provide people with the opportunity to understand the time in which these texts are fixed. For instance, realist texts are full of imaginative representations of different historical events and moments. Finally, literary texts are connected with different discourses and rhetorical structures (Bennett & Royle, 2009a). One of these literary texts is the novel, which is called Beloved. It was written by Toni Morrison and its main theme is American slavery. The main goal of this essay is to analyze this novel and reveal why it is important for contemporary readers to remember the history of American slavery.
The novel Beloved makes a concept of American history. The most evident thing in the novel is the historical perspective. The author provides the history with the help of description of consciousness of slaves, but not through the perspective of white classes. Then, the author builds a parallel between two processes. The first process is psychological recovery. The second process is historical or national (Krumholz, 1992). The example of description of the relationship between individual and historical unconscious can be found in the speech of one of the characters. Sethe talks about the house and she says that even though the house burns down, the picture of it still remains in her memory. Moreover, she adds that it does not only remain in her memory, but also in the memory of the whole world (Morrison, 1987). That is why because her memories exist in the world in the form of historical memory it is possible to reproduce the individual process of recollection on the historical level. Consequently, Sethe’s individual process of recollection is considered to be the process of learning to live with her own past. Her process must become a model for readers because they must come face to face with Sethe’s past and view it as the part of their own past. It is the collective past and it lives in the same place where readers live. It is of great importance for contemporary readers to remember this past because it gives the opportunity for better understanding of their history and the text itself (Krumholz, 1992).
Arnold Rampersad also considers the recovery of history to be the national and personal necessity. In his discussion of The Souls of Black Folk Rampersad states that even though it is very painful for a black American to explore the reality of slavery, it is required step. It helps black Americans to understand themselves and Afro-American culture. If one ignores the fact of slavery, it can end with intellectual and spiritual death. Rampersad also argues that the repression of the historical past can damage human being in a psychological way. In her novel, Morrison considers the legacy of slavery to be the national trauma. She also states that it is a personal trauma as well. In order to make her novel work just like a ritual, Morrison uses techniques that are characteristic to Modernist novels. These techniques are the fragmentation of the plot and shifting narrative voice. These techniques help the author to make readers actively build an interpretive framework. In the novel, readers undergo the process of reconstructing the fragmented story. This process parallels the logical recovery of Sethe. The author also uses different oral techniques, such as the blending of voices, repetition, and the episodic framework. These techniques help the author to make readers participate in the ritual. Moreover, storytelling and poetry cannot be separated from ritual because words as sounds have the greater impact on readers than words as concepts. Obviously, Morrison does whatever it takes in order to make readers feel the history and perceive it as part of the own past (Krumholz, 1992).
The main ritual of healing is the confrontation with Sethe’s past. Sethe undergoes the process of healing through three sections of the novel (Krumholz, 1992). In the first section, when Paul D and Beloved arrive, Sethe is forced to resist her past in which she had two roles. The first role is the slave and the second one is the mother. Then, in the second section, Sethe experiences the period of atonement and faces her past again. She is isolated in the house along with Beloved who is the reason of her suffering because Beloved makes her remind the past and Sethe stand all that pain over and over again. Finally, in the third section of the novel, readers can observe Sethe’s ritual of clearing when women of community help her to expel Beloved. That makes Sethe experience her scene of trauma again, but this time, it is different (Morrison, 1987). Readers also undergo three phases of ritual, which include the personal payoff with the history of American slavery. Firstly, the author of the novel accumulated stories of slavery in the form of fragmented recollections. This results in the manifestation of Sethe’s murder of her own child. Then, in the second part, readers are occupied with the voices full of despair. Finally, in the third part, readers complete their process of clearing through the conversation of Paul D Stamp Paid and the unification of Sethe and Paul D. The novel ends in Denver’s emergence in the role of a new teacher. It gives readers the opportunity to rebuild the history of slavery from black woman’s point of view. It is the model of pedagogy, which enables contemporary readers to comprehend the history of slavery from the completely new side (Krumholz, 1992).
The novel Beloved does something that history books are not able to do. It rebuilds the history of American slavery in its own and unique way. This way of reconstruction cannot be assumed by scientific concepts of history and knowledge. The author inscribes history in the form of trickster spirit. It gives the author the opportunity to recreate readers’ relationship to the history. Even though this process of recreation is difficult and baffling, it is obviously necessary. With the help of the character Beloved, the author succeeds in denying the analytical explanations of slavery. Alternatively, the author leads readers through that painful healing process, which leaves readers with the feeling of pain and shame that was suffered in the slavery (Krumholz, 1992).
The novel Beloved is considered to be a forgotten spirit of the past and it must be appreciated even though it is elusive and unloved. Morrison tells readers that it is not easy to pass on this story. Maybe it is true and it is really hard to pass on this story, but obviously it must be passed on. The author shows why it is so important to remember the history of American slavery, but she does it in her own and specific way. Morrison shows that this history concerns everyone and it is really significant. By making readers feel all this pain and sufferings, she shows them that it is important to remember the history of slavery because it helps understand it better (Krumholz, 1992). Readers must also remember about the way in which they should read such texts. Critics and theorists suggest a lot of different ways of reading, but readers must read such texts as Beloved with the understanding of what is contained in this text. In this case, it is the history of American slavery (Bennett & Royle, 2009b).
As the conclusion, it must be revealed that in her novel, Morrison manages to combine the oral and literary traditions in order to create her personal representation of the history of American slavery. By doing so, Morrison is able to criticize historical and pedagogical methods, which are widespread in the United States of America. She counters the objective system with the help of ritual method, which is based on healing rituals. In these rituals, obtaining the knowledge is considered to be subjective and spiritual experience (Krumholz, 1992). Moreover, she suggests that is of great importance to remember the history of slavery because this knowledge gives readers a great opportunity to comprehend texts that are concerned with this topic in abetter way. With this knowledge, readers are able to read and analyze texts appropriately and understand what author tries to say.
References
Bennett, A. & Royle, N. (2009). History. In An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (4th ed., pp. 117-127). Routledge.
Krumholz, L. (1992). The Ghosts of Slavery: Historical Recovery in Toni Morrison's Beloved. African American Review, 26(3), 395-407. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3041912
Morrison, T. (1987). Beloved (pp. 3-270). New York: Knopf.
Bennett, A. & Royle, N. (2009). Racial Difference. In An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (4th ed., pp. 234-241). Routledge.
