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Symbolism In Toni Morrison's Beloved

1680 Words7 Pages

Beloved Beloved represents the awful history behind slavery, and exposes the damaging effects it had on the individuals that witnessed it. The novel, set in the Post-Civil War in Ohio is that of a sad victory story. “124” the powerful place in which the ex-slaves express extreme emotions of what happened in the past. Kristin Boudreau states that “when Toni Morrison’s Beloved opens with a house “full of baby’s venom, it announces the prominent pain in the lives of these ex-slaves” (Boudreau, 447). African Americans had to regroup and put their slavery demons at bay, experiencing their own personal traumas. Morrison used symbols throughout her work to depict slavery’s evil. Therefore, in what ways do Morrison explore the psychological impact of slavery? What are the trials and tribulations that each character faces in the story? In the novel, Toni Morrison uses symbolism to express the psychological impact of slavery by exploring the physical, emotional, and spiritual states of the characters.
Toni Morrison, Beloved is a tale of an actual account that took place. Referencing the “Sixty Million and more” the slaves that died during slavery. Morrison intrigued by a newspaper article in 1974, of Margaret Garner, a story similar to Sethe’s portrayed in the novel; a woman on the run to freedom from Kentucky to Ohio. Morrison wanted to capture the rude awakening of slavery and point out that slavery is something that now in the present day still affecting those whose ancestors

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