Unrecorded Memory and Storytelling in Toni Morrison’s Beloved
The Unrecorded Memory and Storytelling in Morrison’s Beloved
When reading African-American works, Morrison’s Beloved stands out in comparison to others. Beloved as a novel is a remarkable work of art due to the narrative techniques used in it and how the novel is used as an artifact to convey social and cultural characteristics from African-American society. In the present report, two recurrent issues will be presented and discussed regarding the relevance of storytelling as a form of popular expression and the Eurocentric notions of History and progress in opposition to the Afro manifestation of unrecorded memory.
Storytelling as a Form of Popular Expression
In the narration presented in Beloved, it is possible to recognize that the stories and experiences told by Black characters or presented in the middle of the narration are not simply an additional element without relevance to the novel, but, on the contrary, these stories help to configure the content and the form of the novel. For instance, in one of the encounters Sethe had with another Black character like Paul D, the narration gives us a description of what life in the plantation where Sethe was a slave was like:
“There had been six of them who belonged to the farm, Sethe the only female. Mrs. Garner, crying like a baby, had sold his brother to pay off the debts that surfaced the minute she was widowed. Then schoolteacher arrived to put things in order. But what he did broke three more Sweet Home men and punched the glittering iron out of Sethe’s eyes, leaving two open wells that did not reflect firelight.” (5)
In this example, the events told are part of memories that come into Sethe’s mind as a reminder of the life she has been through. This type of narration opens a window into the social and political context Black people had to suffer. Eventually, slavery was more than oppression, it was also the denial of Black people to live and enjoy essential stages in a person’s life. In addition to this, the memories told about the moment Sethe had to choose to kill her daughter Beloved come to be one of the most shocking narrations from the novel, along with the following dialogue:
“But neither Stamp Paid nor Baby Suggs could make her put her crawling-already? girl down. Out of the shed, back in the house, she held on. Baby Suggs had got the boys inside and was bathing their heads, rubbing their hands, lifting their lids, whispering, “Beg your pardon, I beg your pardon,” the whole time. She bound their wounds and made them breathe camphor before turning her attention to Sethe. She took the crying baby from Stamp Paid and carried it on her shoulder for a full two minutes, then stood in front of its mother.
“It’s time to nurse your youngest,” she said.
Sethe reached up for the baby without letting the dead one go.” (16.87)
This narration describes the “rough choice” (17.100) in Paul D’s words Sethe had to take. Initially, this may seem a selfish or evil choice, but in the end what is remarkable about the event is that Sethe had to go to such an extreme in order to prevail somehow Beloved’s freedom from the slavery she would suffer as being held as a slave for the schoolteacher. Other characters like Paul D initially rejected Sethe’s actions, but as the novel progresses he comes to the realization that Sethe’s choice was acceptable due to the situation she had to face and considering the circumstances.
Therefore, these elements come to represent that Black characters in the novel are not flat or simple, but they are essentially complex and fundamental in the development of the novel. Following this idea, Morrison argued as well in the essay she wrote “Playing in the Dark” that most Black characters presented in American literature used to be characterized as ornamental. On this basis, she as a writer introduces a change by constructing complex Black characters but without diminishing other white characters as Amy, for instance, who is presented in an interaction with Sethe as she was pregnant and she assists her. Amy shows a clear development in her characterization and role, as it can be seen in Sethe’s perspective:
“Her name was Amy and she needed beef and pot liquor like nobody in this world. Arms like cane stalks and enough hair for four or five heads. Slow-moving eyes. She didn’t look at anything quick. Talked so much it wasn’t clear how she could breathe at the same time. And those cane-stalk arms, as it turned out, were as strong as iron.” (18)
These narratives and experiences are indispensable to the structure of the novel, as well as the non-chronological order of the events provided. Because the fragmentation and the continuous use of anaphoras in Sethe’s storytelling represents also a difference with other works of art written from a Eurocentric viewpoint, which come to promote dominant discourses and ideologies that are opposed to the narration Morrison presents.
Unrecorded Memory and the Collective Memory of Black Communities
Moreover, storytelling also shapes the community and its cultural and social characteristics in relation to the memory they carry. Morrison in this novel shows a critical vision of the slavery Black people suffered. Among these maltreatments and traumas the memory people had also was modified as it became dynamic and vital to the community. Slaves were not allowed to have access to what landlords have. On the contrary, Black people’s manifestations were reduced and punished. Considering this, Morrison’s work in Beloved is so exceptional because she manages to create not only a narration of what Black people’s lives were like, but also to connect this narration with everyday experiences any person knows and can relate to.
Morrison’s Beloved shows mostly cultural elements from Black communities as their customs and traditions but she is able to hide at the same time some Western cultural elements. This type of construction in the narration is highlighted by Gates as one of the most original characteristics from African-American narrators who are able to create new elements, but also to imaginatively add a new meaning by narrating a series of events with hidden properties from other texts radically different (57-58). Among Beloved’s characterizations and appearances in the novel these elements can be seen. For instance, at the beginning of the novel Beloved is portrayed as the prototypical ghost that haunts a house:
“It was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims.” (1)
But later on, Beloved is seen as a common character that interacts with other Black characters and has a proper consciousness:
“So he did not press the young woman with the broken hat about where from or how come. If she wanted them to know and was strong enough to get through the telling, she would. What occupied them at the moment was what it might be that she needed.” (31)
This change may be related to certain cultural elements that differ from the Eurocentric vision and are characteristic of Black communities. In addition to this, the conceptualization of the memory is seen as a dissimilar component in comparison to the Western tradition, as Sethe says:
“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. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don’t think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.” (21)
Here, what Sethe calls “rememory” is what common people would just name memory. The difference is established on the basis of the experiences she had. As a matter of fact, storytelling in this novel helps to construct and configure a collective memory that Black communities share. In spite of the fact that Black characters try to forget all the suffering, traumas and slavery, so as to move on with their lives, it is impossible to do that because those experiences are a crucial component of the memory Black communities had.