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Beloved Essay, Toni Morrison

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Submitted By fdm1995
Words 2111
Pages 9
Freeman McLean
April 22, 2014
ENGL 112.003

African-American Communities in Beloved

Thesis: Toni Morrison focuses on negative impact of slavery on the well-being of African American communities throughout her novel Beloved by depicting the damage done, its effects on individual characters, and the renewal of community.

1. The enforcement of slavery has destroyed black communities and families 1. Families throughout Beloved were split due to slavery 2. The community of 124 abandons its members 1. Characters are negatively impacted by the lack of community 1. The deeds and traits of Six-o compared to the rest of the men living at Sweet Home 2. Denver and Sethe’s lack of identity due to a lacking of maternal figures 1. Toni Morrison provides ways to repair a broken community 1. The significance of Beloved as a means to address the past 2. The individual efforts of characters compared to the successes of the community and the importance of Baby Suggs and the Clearing
Conclusion

African American Communities in Beloved

Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a wonderfully written novel filled with themes and symbolisms. The novel is told with a linear moving plot that is constantly short stopped by the recurrence of character’s repressed memories. A very prominent theme in the story is of communal identity. Morrison emphasizes throughout the story the importance of community. Toni Morrison focuses on the negative impacts of slavery on the well-being of African American communities throughout her novel Beloved by depicting the damage done, its effects on characters, and the renewal of community.

Slavery was a very degrading institution. The tragedies of the slavery can be drawn back to the Middle Passage from the 16th to the 19th century, in which more than 10 million Africans were stolen from their homes and

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