Kaye+Lin+K.

Note: I currently do not know how to indent on this page. The entire poster is overlaid by a “shattered” theme. This choice represents, on a superficial level, the shattered lives of the characters of //Beloved//, and, more significant, the shattered lives of the ex-slaves of post-Civil War America. The shattered nature of the characters and African Americans is emphasized on the poster by a picture of African American slaves on a slave ship (//The Illustrated London News// [June 20, 1857], vol. 30, pp. 595-96). In the book, the narrations of Beloved often are suggestive of life on a slave ship, which adds to the idea of Beloved being the manifest representation of the suffering, ex-slave African American who must be allowed back into African Americans’ lives then defeated in order for them to mend. The usage of a historical document is to make clear that the racial themes in the book are nothing invented but are instead taken from the past. Slavery does not dissipate: It trickles into its tributaries, racism, stereotypes, and prejudices. To ignore this is to ignore something essential. In order to escape his brokenness, Paul D locks his heart in a tin tobacco box (www.ebay.com/itm/1800s-Civil-War-era-Tin-Snuff-Tobacco-Box-/160676152883), a picture of one being on the poster. Paul D is not the only character or person who shuts away his heart. False closure is central to the book, and thus it is in the center of the poster. Paul D ignores his feelings, Beloved selfishly attaches herself to Sethe, the only one she loves, and Sethe and Denver, yearning for the third female, the lost daughter, accept Beloved, who desires too hotly, to point of their diminution. Parallel, the American Civil War was false closure, an end to slavery but not the pain of slavery. The tobacco box shown is a small object suitable for containing a heart made small by its possessor. A dress (1860-1960.com/xa6338p0.html) is present on the poster since an elegant dress is a motif in the book. Denver, in a flashback, sees her mother aided by a white dress. Later, Beloved arrives in a black dress. The dress is at first white, pure since Beloved is only a ghost as she should be, and becomes black when Beloved journeys to where she should not be, where she is dead. The dress is one for a woman; Beloved has grown, though not necessarily in maturity. The dress is elegant perhaps because it is fitting for a complicated character or perhaps because it is fitting for a character rich in emotions. On the poster, the white dress is against dark grey so that the dress stands out as Beloved does: Beloved demands attention. The poster is not composed of many colors, and most of the colors are neutral. The book is a grim one, and so even the bit of brightness, the portion containing the title, is dark. However, nothing is overly eerie, for the book is not excessively assaulting and harmful to read. The book is true to life, its pain, its lingering, and its darkness. Nothing sexual is present on the poster, for honestly nothing especially sexual is present in the book. Yes, characters fornicate with each other and, concerning the Sweet Home men, animals, and yes, sexual depravities are mentioned, but they are not mentioned more than necessary, and reasons for their being mentioned are evident. Morrison does not simply include a sexual scene to absorb readers interested in sex or to shock readers. The reason for sex is not sex but rather to elucidate or create connections between or realizations of or within characters. A ghost is not present on the poster because the book may include a ghost, a concern of a Plymouth-Canton Schools family, but more important is the metaphorical ghost mentioned in the first paragraph. The metaphorical ghost is shown in the poster as the historical document, as, quite simply, history. The connection between the metaphorical ghost and actual ghost Beloved and the metaphorical ghost and history in the poster are both simply seen ones. The metaphor is what matters. Concerning violence, nothing of it is on the poster as it is not a matter of particular concern. While readers are surely shocked to read of Sethe killing her own child and the Sweet Home men being harmed, such violence did occur, and so these add to the realism of the book. Morrison was inspired to write //Beloved// after coming across a newspaper article on a slave who killed her daughter when caught on the run. Violence is a gruesome matter, but it is present in life, as any who lives knows, and if it is ignored, the truth of life is not present. People are humans, and so they are capable of and sometimes do ill. However, they always have reasons. Mourning and understanding this fact is a necessity to be able to cope with the ill in one’s own life. Most people who read //Beloved// already know this fact and expect violence to be present in several of the meaningful books they read. Language is not a major element of the poster as when one reads //Beloved//, yes, the language is abrasive to the eyes, but mature readers understand that the language is truthful to the time and characters. People who are crude of speech are often found in society and are still accepted by it because cruelty and crudeness is in the tone more than anything else. The characters quite simply have not been allowed by society to know much other than cruelty and crudeness, and so their speaking with socially unacceptable words is reasonable. //Beloved// is dark book, but years of learning of dark times has readied mature readers. People may not expect the darkness to be as present as it is in the book, but they know the treatment of African Americans and other groups was and is nothing of which to boast. Americans are taught of early Americans’ mistreatment of other ethnicities and races in elementary school. Some consider //Beloved//’s darkness to be too much for a reader and so wish to ban the book, but for the mature reader, which most high school students are, the book’s darkness is nothing more disturbing than conducive to understanding the past, how it remains but can be overcome if allowed to affect one fully. Life emerges, life recedes, death emerges, and life proceeds.

Kaye Lin Kuphal

Dr. Angela Gunter

AP English Language

14 March 2013

Works Cited

Baldassarro, R. Wolf. "Banned Books Awareness." //Banned Books Awareness: A worldwide literacy project to celebrate the freedom to read.//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. .

In Plymouth-Canton Schools in Michigan in 2011, //Beloved// was challenged as to its place as Advanced Placement English material by a family concerned about the book’s racial themes, sexual content, and sections about ghosts. The reading list was released to parents before the term, and the book was on the class syllabus. Support of the concern came from Loren Khogali, president of the Detroit branch of ACLU of Michigan. A committee voted to keep the book. In 1995, //Beloved// was challenged in St. Johns County Schools in St. Augustine, Florida. In 1996, the book was retained by Round Rock, Texas Independent High School after complaints were made about the violence in the book. In 1997, the book was challenged by someone on the Madawaska School Committee in Maine on the grounds of the book’s language. In Sarasota County in Florida, a challenge was made against the book because of its sexual material. //Beloved// ranks as number seven on American Library Association’s list of top one hundred most challenged classics of all time. On the list of most challenged books by decade, //Beloved// ranks as number twenty-six for 2000-2009 and forty-five for 1990-1999.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Jimoh, A. Yemisi. “Toni Morrison”. //The Literary Encyclopedia//. Ed. Clark, Robert, et al. January 2002. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Morrison is an accomplished writer having won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Plitzer Prize in Fiction, American Book Award, and more such prestigious awards. She was born into the role of second child of George and Ramah Wofford in 1931 during the Depression. Her father was a ship-welder and whatever he had to be to keep his family together and as prosperous as possible. The Jim Crow segregation provoked him to move from Georgia to Ohio. The Woffords were storytellers and believed that spiritual ways could yield knowledge. Raised in a small Ohio town, Morrison was in the middle of living history pertinent to her, Ohio being a state with an abolitionist history and a role in the Underground Railroad and the Klu Klux Klan being able to be found in Ohio. Morrison attended Howard University as an undergraduate, renaming herself Toni while there in the 1950s. In //The Song of Solomon//, Morrison submits a family story of her maternal grandfather, who lost eighty-eight acres of land passed on to him from his Native American mother to “unscrupulous white men.” While helping compile //The Black Book//, a collection of historical documents considered to be part of African American heritage, Morrison discovered a nineteenth-century newspaper article on Margaret Garner, a runaway slave who killed her child to keep it from slavery.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Krumholz, Linda. "The Ghosts of Slavery: Historical Recovery in Toni Morrison's Beloved." //African American Review// 26.3 (1992): 395-408. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">In this article Krumholz emphasizes //Beloved// being a physic, a manner of healing for the characters of the novel, the readers, and the author. Krumholz writes, “Morrison constructs a parallel between the individual processes of psychological recovery and a historical or national process.” Sethe says once in the novel that her memories are part of the actual memory of something, her idea of the house part of the house. Extend this to the novel, to the healing allowed by Beloved’s appearance in Sethe’s community, to the novel being published and read by thousands affected by slavery directly or indirectly, and the degree to which catharsis can be obtained is easily imagined to be immense. Beloved comes into Sethe’s community members’ lives as well as readers’ and the writer’s, forcing them to witness the horror of her, to live with her, to put her to rest, and to advance positively in their lives. If any are healed, the entirety of those harmed by slavery is healed in a way.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">"Marshall University Libraries - Banned Book - Toni Morrison's //Beloved//." //Marshall University.// N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. <http://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/books/beloved.asp>.

//<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Beloved //<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;"> was challenged in Northwest Suburban High School District in Arlington Heights, Illinois, in 2007. A newly elected school board member raised issue with the book after reading excerpts of it and other books on the Internet. The same year, //Beloved// was taken from the Advanced Placement English class’s reading list in Eastern High School in Louisville, Kentucky, after two parents complained about depictions of bestiality, racism, and sex in the book. In 2008, the book was challenged in the Coeur d’Alene School District in Idaho. Parents said the book should have been allowed to be read only with parental permission. In Salem High School in Michigan in 2012, //Beloved// was challenged but retained in Advanced Placement English classes. The book was said to be obscene in certain passages. District officials said, however, that the book was appropriate for Advanced Placement students given the book’s objectivity, accuracy, and necessity and students’ age and maturity.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Muckley, Peter A. "To Garner Stories: A Note on Margaret and Sethe in and out of History, and Toni Morrison's //Beloved//." 2002. //Anniina’s Toni Morrison Page//. N.p., 19 Sept. 2002. Web. 9 Mar. 2013. <http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/tonimorrison/muckley.htm>.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Muckley gives a history concerning //Beloved// and its inspiration. Slaves were often referred to by owners’ names, such as Paul D was when called Mr. Garner. Margaret Garner was a slave who escaped from Kentucky with sixteen other slaves, riding on a sled driven by horses stolen from their owners then crossing the frozen Ohio River by foot. Margaret was wife to Robert Garner, with whom she had four children, two boys and two girls, as Sethe had with Halle. Robert’s mother was named Mary, hence perhaps Grandma Baby Suggs’s name epithet “holy.” The fugitives were eventually caught, and they were determined to make a final stand, to fight and die, rather than be enslaved again. Margaret took a butcher’s knife to her youngest girl’s throat then tried to kill herself and the rest of her children. The fugitives, numbering seven after their attempt to maintain their freedom, were jailed then put on trial. The lawyers argued that Margaret had been legally free as she had been allowed to work in a Free State and should be charged with murder and the rest of her company complicity. This argument was supposed to circumvent the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law and allow the Garner party to stay in a Free State and be considered people rather than property. The family was ultimately sent back into slavery. Margaret continued her thoughts of killing herself and her children. Her little boys were no longer noted by Coffin, one of her lawyers, as sudden and little written of a disappearance as that of Sethe’s sons in //Beloved//. When Margaret and her remaining baby were on a ship on their way back to slavery, the ship sank and was shaken by another ship coming to its rescue, causing the two to fall into the river. Margaret “displayed frantic joy” upon hearing her child had drowned then declared she, too, would drown. In actuality, she lived to work in New Orleans with her husband, was sold to a judge, and died in 1858 of typhoid fever. Margaret told her husband to “live in the hope of Freedom.” Also mentioned by Muckley is the water symbolism present in //Beloved//. Beloved was in limbo in water, death, and emerged from water, as in birth. Denver was born on a boat, the water from Sethe and the water around the birth being life.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Public Broadcasting Service. "The Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act." //Africans in America//. PBS: Public Broadcasting Service, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2013. <www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html>.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Henry Clay presented the Compromise of 1850, which consisted of resolved land disputes, slave trade being abolished in D. C. though generally permitted in the U. S., California’s admittance into the U. S. as a free state, and the Fugitive Slave Act. The last made the assisting of the recovery of fugitive slaves a mandatory act for citizens and denied fugitive slaves’ right to a trial by jury; trials for them would be handled by special commissioners, who would receive five dollars if a supposed fugitive was released and ten dollars if a supposed fugitive was sent with the claimant. Also, the process of filing a claim was made easier for slave owners. The Underground Railroad became more active in response to the Fugitive Slave Act.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Public Broadcasting Service. "The Underground Railroad." //PBS: Public Broadcasting Service//. Public Broadcasting Service, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2013. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html>.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">The Underground Railroad was a network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape the South. Most people knew what was happening locally to help fugitives, but not overall, these people being African Americans for the most part, although several white people were involved. The Underground Railroad began forming near the end of the eighteenth century, and in 1831 it was named what it is known as today. A fugitive slave had several obstacles to overcome: He or she had to escape his or her owner, which usually had to be done on his or her own, travel ten to twenty miles to stations of out-of-the-way places at which a conductor of the Railroad would aid him or her, and travel by train and boat though he or she would be rather exposed to the public. The Underground Railroad had vigilance committees, which helped raise money for fugitive slaves as well as provided letters of recommendation, job opportunities, food, and lodging.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Selvaggio, Giuliana. "Web Case Book on BELOVED by Toni Morrison." //MU Personal Web Pages//. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2013. <http://faculty.millikin.edu/~moconner/beloved/Giuliana-Response-essay1.html>.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Selvaggio contains in her essay the essence of //Beloved//. //Beloved// is an ambiguous work, and because of its ambiguity it is able to give to readers all readers can take from it. Themes of feminism, reconstruction, and post colonialism can be detected, but readers’ personally determined themes can as well: “A reader, like a chemical reaction, is affected by every element that surrounds it. Everything in that element from the time of its creation has technically affected its recent reaction; in this case, it is with //Beloved//. The reader, in reaction with //Beloved//, has had every experience in their life up to the completion of //Beloved// affect their reaction to //Beloved//. Literature like that of //Beloved//, that offers ambiguous meanings or latent themes throughout the work, is an ideal formula for response.” The identity of Beloved and how exactly the novels ends are mysteries, and readers are welcome to determine them as they wish. This subjectivity is not only for the story but for the reader-book relationship. Sethe looks to Beloved for validation, the book looks to the reader for validation, and the reader looks to him or herself for validation. The reaction, the seeking of validation, is deemed necessary because of discomfort characterizing the seeker. Self-trammeling this discomfort results in rationalization, which can be as shoaly or abyssal as the seeker allows it to be.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Wyatt, Jean. "Giving Body to the Word: The Maternal Symbolic in Toni Morrison's Beloved." //Publications of the Modern Language Association of America// 108.3 (1993): 474-488. Web. 10 Mar. 2013.

<span style="font-family: 'Microsoft Sans Serif','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Wyatt’s article elucidates themes present in Toni Morrison’s //Beloved//, specifically an infant’s desires and the suffering inflicted upon those having endured and been broken by slavery. Wyatt assumes Beloved to have been Sethe’s murdered baby; regardless of this proposal being true, Beloved represents an infant, a being unaware of life’s true goodness and complexity, rendered able to act as an adult though not to think as one. Beloved also represents the line of people marred and mangled by slavery. As a ghost so indigent and unfinished with the world that she gains a corporeal body, Beloved is a reminder of what slavery has caused to be, a being choked by solitude with cruelty if the girl mentioned to have been held captive or, if Sethe’s, killed by its own mother and unable to understand love, a being having been destroyed in some manner. The being Beloved is the bitter, malignant past.