Common Sense Note
Parents should know that infanticide is an important and prevalent theme in this book, and a very disturbing one. Sensitive readers of any age may find this material too disturbing to make the book worthwhile. Despite this and other specific warnings noted in the content advisories, though, most readers will find Beloved a much more restrained book, at least in terms of sexual content, than the author's Song of Solomon. But the storytelling is far more restrained as well and, though parents will find fewer reasons for concern, even older teens may have a hard time connecting with this material.
Parents whose older teens read this can discuss to what extent our children are ours, their fate to be decided by us alone? How can a people move beyond a horrific condition like slavery and lay claim to their humanity.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Brad Philipson
In composing Beloved, Toni Morrison began with fact, a report of a woman who chose to try to kill her own children rather than allow them to return to slavery. Around this, Morrison built Truth, a world in which such an act is not only possible, but even noble. Compared with ancient Medea's relatively selfish infanticide, rooted in jealousy, the protagonist, Sethe, would rather be with her children "on the other side" than allow them to endure the same indignities she has suffered her whole life.
Essential to Beloved is that the past won't remain in the past. It has its own meaning, its own tangible existence. Sethe tells this to her remaining daughter, Denver, now eighteen, before the grown spirit of Beloved, her lost child, returns in corporeal form to live with them.
As horrific as the murder sounds, the book places the act in context. Slaves had only known life as property, never as humans, at least not until they either escaped or died. One slave master, a schoolteacher, goes so far as to enlist his pupils in a scientific study of his slaves' animalistic qualities. Throughout the novel, Morrison refers to "whitepeople" and "coloredpeople," using unbroken compound words as if the two are different species. Even Garner, a more generous master and a predecessor of contemporary white liberals, who refers to his slaves as men rather than boys and treats them with paternalistic respect, still holds them as chattel. As each slave finds freedom, he or she must grasp the concept not only of freedom, but of self-ownership. Infanticide, in this context, is an act of rebellion, the handing over of a child to God and a mother's statement of ownership over her child.
This is clearly a worthwhile book, as most readers spend far too little time weighing the true nature of self-determination, but it is not for everybody. The actual scene of the murder is gruesome, likely too gruesome for some readers. Though it is worth persevering for readers who can truly take this horrifyingly beautiful work as a whole, unfortunately the pacing of this novel is too slow and the tension far too subtle for most teen readers. Parents and teachers are better off allowing this novel as an independent choice for more contemplative older teens and adults.
From the Book:
"What were you talking about?"
"You won't understand, baby."
"Yes, I will."
"I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place - the picture of it - stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world ..."
Plot Summary:
Sethe is an ex-slave who, rather than allow herself and her children to be captured back into slavery, decides to kill every last one of them. She succeeds in killing only her second youngest, who later returns to haunt the house in which the family lives, first in ethereal form and then in corporeal form. The novel takes place primarily in the years after the Civil War, though it often flashes back to slavery.
In the present action, Sethe is approximately thirty-six, some eighteen years beyond the killing. Her youngest daughter, Denver, is eighteen and lives with her. Her two sons have run off, while the mother-in-law who took her in, the mystical Baby Suggs, has passed away. Sethe is shunned by the town, and the ghost of her murdered daughter is Denver's only playmate, when Paul D. arrives, forcing the ghost to take more decisive action to ensure her place in her mother's life. The book moves seamlessly back and forth through time, capturing Sethe's girlhood, her time on the plantation ("Sweet Home"), and the lives of the various secondary characters.
Related Books:
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Medea by Euripides
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Sexual ContentScenes of intercourse, one man holds down a slave while another man suckles her nursing breast, references to men having sex with young cattle, forced fellatio, a graphic birthing scene and intricate medical care afterward, a slave girl marries and has sex at fourteen, several instances of coerced miscegenation. |
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ViolenceSeveral beatings, a strangulation, and a horrific scene of a woman murdering her own infant with a handsaw. Several references to infanticide. |
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LanguageOccasional profanity, frequent racial slurs. |
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Social BehaviorSex out of wedlock, racial violence. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoOne or two brief scenes of alcohol use by adults. |
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