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Slavery And Love In Toni Morrison: A World Of Ideas

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Toni Morrison is an award winning, popular author, known for her intense books about slavery and love. She is interviewed in Bonnie Angelo’s “The Pain of Being Black”; Bill Moyer’s video series, A World of Ideas; and Emma Brockes’s article, “Toni Morrison: ‘I want to feel what I feel. Even if it’s not happiness.” Morrison’s family and experience with segregation inspires her novels that express her moral and sociopolitical beliefs. Morrison declares her main motivation for her novels is love – the love between lovers and family members, motherhood in particular (Moyers). A common trend between her words is the issue of excessive love, most notable in Beloved in which a mother commits infanticide to prevent the child from subjected to slavery (Moyers). Morrison has not taken such extreme measures, her unceasing love for her children can be observed after her one of her son’s death, when “she could not work” and would “barely speak” (Brockes). Despite the pain of losing a child, the author confesses that motherhood is liberating (Moyers). Because she is a single mother, her children solely look up to her as a parental role model. Subsequently, in hopes to instill the qualities she knows will benefit her children – conscientiousness and honesty, for instance – she must display those traits first. Meanwhile, she stays away from vanity, materialism, and other negative characteristics. Thus by working hard to become her children’s capable role model, she becomes a better person

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