[originaltext] In today’s class, we’ll discuss Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved

In today’s class, we’ll discuss Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. As I’m sure you all know, Morrison is both a popular and highly respected author and it’s not easy to be both. Born in 1931, Morrison has written some of the most touching and intelligent works on the African-American experience ever written by anyone. And yet to call her an African-American writer doesn’t seem to do her justice. In many ways, she’s simply an American writer and certainly one of the best. Beloved is a truly remarkable work. It was recommended for nearly every nature literary class, including the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and it in fact won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988. Morrison herself is distinguished for having won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993. What makes Beloved unique is the skillful sure way in which Morrison blends intensely personal storytelling and American history, racial themes and gender themes, the experience of blacks with the experience of all people everywhere, the down-to-earth reality of slavery with the sense of mysterious spirituality. We will be paying special attention to these themes as we discuss this work and I’m particularly interested in your views on the relative importance of grace and gender in this book. Is it more important that Sethe, the main character, is black, or that she is a woman? Which contributes more to her being? What does Morrison tell us about both?
23. What do we learn about Toni Morrison?
24. What honor did Toni Morrison receive in 1993?
25. What does the speaker tell us about Sethe, the main character, in Morrison’s novel Beloved?