When Sixo provides an explanation for shooting Mr. Garner's property, it is the schoolteacher's immediate and uncompromising reaction to Mr. Garner's attempted self-justification. the slave. In the eyes of the white man, slaves (“the defined”) are not entitled to the privilege of giving, or even creating, their own perspective on events. The formulation of his opinion also suggests that there can be only one completely true version of everything: each event can ultimately be "defined" in an indisputable and finite narrative (his own). This in itself, however, is only one perspective among many, a fact that Morrison's complex narrative technique subtly but unequivocally suggests. Rebecca Ferguson observes that "even if the language of the dominant culture and the written word itself have too often been powerful instruments of oppression [of black people], to fail to master them is to find oneself powerless in a way that matters a lot.” . Morrison is very aware of this paradox that she herself faces as a black writer, and the power of language and communication is greatly emphasized in Beloved. The text vividly presents the breadth of interpretive possibilities related to issues such as motherhood, slavery, and black history in particular, employing a variety of narratives focusing on the same events. While Morrison thus gloriously proves that contrary to the teacher's position, black people are multidimensional humans with a full range of emotions and values, his most striking achievement is simultaneously to demonstrate how an interpretation without end can become futile. Sethe's expression of maternal love in the murder of her child, for example, is misinterpreted as a savage act by the book's black and white characters, and perhaps also by the reader: only she can 'explain. This feeling of struggle to arrive at the correct interpretation is also encountered by the reader on another level, as he attempts to understand the main events of Sethe's life from an often confusing and chaotic narrative.Say No to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Morrison, who never brings his personal opinion or judgment directly to the text, depicts the horrors of slavery in several imaginative ways. She allows all of her characters to give their own account of slavery, and it is the varying levels of eagerness with which they divulge their interpretations that is most telling. The white men of Sweet Home Farm are still fervent in their desire to share their opinions on slavery, while the slaves themselves are reluctant to talk about it, even after their release or escape. The extent to which Mr. Garner prides himself on his treatment of slaves is ridiculous; it becomes clear that he is more concerned with debating the issue than with the actual welfare of the slaves. He believes he embodies “what a true Kentuckian was: a man tough enough and smart enough to make and call his own Negroes men” (p. 11). While this may seem like a more humanitarian perspective than the teacher's list of "animal characteristics" in Sethe (p. 193), the comparison becomes virtually irrelevant when considering the actual treatment of slaves. The following exchange between Baby Suggs and Mr. Garner highlights this gap in norms: “Have you ever been hungry [at Sweet Home]? » “No, sir. " " Cold ? » “No, sir. » “Has anyone laid a hand on you?” " "No, sir. " "Did I let Halle buy you or not? " "Yes, sir, you have itdone,' she said thinking, but you have my boy and I'm all devastated. You'll hire him to pay me long after I'm gone to Glory. (p.146) Mr. Garner is extremely proud of his non-violence towards baby, which he sees as an expression of his extreme kindness, rather than as a confirmation of his basic human rights. This passage vividly expresses his inability to consider (or recognize) his broken spirit, and the effect of loss. of his son, indicating that his perception of slaves is barely distinguishable from that of a school teacher "Mr. Garner acted as if the world were a toy with which he was supposed to play" (p. 139). ), observes Sethe, and in this light, his supposedly benevolent stance on slavery can be seen as a self-indulgent attempt to ingratiate himself. Mr. Garner's tiresome eagerness to create his own interpretation of it. Slavery is made particularly insignificant by Sethe's unwillingness to face her own past. Because she was so closely and chaotically immersed in the actual experience of slavery and escape, she never had the opportunity to reflect on and shape her own interpretation of the events and their consequences. It is for this reason that she suffers from unwanted "memories" which are terribly tangible: where I was before coming here, this place is real. It will never go away, even if the whole farm, every tree and every glass slide dies. The image is still there and what's more, if you go there, you who have never been there, if you go there and stay where it was, it will happen again; he will be there for you, waiting for you... (p.36) This "image" has remained eternally etched in Sethe's mind and is so powerful that she, seemingly irrationally (given that slavery was abolished), fear of Denver being absorbed by the image. Like the reader, Denver cannot fully appreciate the precise details of Sethe's past and the haunting effect they have on her mother, but she is aware of their weight and significance. “Denver hated the stories her mother told that weren't about her...the rest was a bright, powerful world, made all the more real by Denver's absence” (p. 63). Denver is jealous of this other world simply because her mother's stories are accompanied by such an overwhelming force, the source of which the young girl cannot understand. This notion of feeling the meaning of something that cannot be explained or accounted for with simple language is particularly relevant. to Beloved’s treatment of black suffering. Jan Furman refers to Morrison's "titanic responsibility [in] continuing an unfinished storyline about slavery begun more than two centuries ago with the first slave narrative" and, interestingly, the most The author's effective use of this "scenario" is when she forcefully revokes the value of language to communicate the pain of slavery. Paul D's account of the silent brotherhood among blacks who wandered uncomfortably after the Civil War is particularly moving: Strange groups of wandering blacks... relied heavily on each other. Silent, apart from social courtesies, when they met they neither described nor spoke of the sorrow that drove them from one place to another. White people couldn't stand to talk. Everyone knew it. (p. 52-3) There is no room for interpretation, "everyone knew" the horrible truth and any attempt at verbal explanation or sympathy would be redundant. Morrison herself attributes this muted understanding, and so "grief" is the only term she uses to describe their situation; its simplicity alluding to the presence of so many emotionsinexpressible. A similar sense of community is recognizable at the beginning of Baby Suggs' sermons, when all listeners are asked to "let go" and "laugh, cry, and dance" (p. 89) together. His inspiring words have their own place, but this immense physical and communal liberation is striking in its implied sense of common understanding. Individual perspective doesn't matter since everyone succumbs to the same feeling of temporary liberation (just as Paul D.'s friends mutually encountered the same "heartbreak"). The character of Beloved, who can be said to in some way represent the 'Sixty Million' and More' of the dedication, and who certainly has much to communicate, demonstrates the shortcomings of the language in the most dramatic way. “How can I say things that are pictures” (p. 210), she reflects, and the reader experiences a similar frustration as she struggles to make sense of her confusing narrative. Disturbing revelations such as "the man in my face is dead, his face is not mine...someone is struggling but there is no room to do so" (p. 210) express confusion and panic, especially regarding one's sense of identity. The reader's attempt to arrive at a clear interpretation of his disjointed sentences will never be fully successful, but a feeling of perplexity will be achieved through this very discrepancy. If his references to "the bread-colored sea" and "the others crouching" (p. 211) are taken to represent the middle passage suffered by so many slaves, a parallel can be drawn between the reader's inability to understand of Beloved's story and his failure as someone who never had the experience to understand the effects of slavery. In either case, no matter the degree of interest or application, precise interpretation will be impossible. However, the ambiguity surrounding the truth will only mean that infinite impressions can be obtained from it. The most powerful demonstration of the failure of interpretation in the novel is Sethe's murder of her child, the focus of several stories. In the same way that Paul D. can't really appreciate the degree of humiliation Sethe is having her milk taken from her ("They used cowhide on you?" "And they took my milk." “They beat you and you were pregnant?” “And they took my milk.” (p.17), only she can explain the logic of her seemingly savage act. agreeing with the whites (which can only amplify the sense of betrayal Sethe feels), her family and friends call her an animal Paul D, usually gentle, is shocked to announce that "You have two. feet, Sethe, not four" (p. 165); her former friend Ella proclaims, "I don't have any friends, get a handsaw"; to their own children" (p. 187); and the most saddened of all, her daughter Denver lives in silent fear “that there is certainly something in her that allows her to kill her own people” (p. 206) out of fear for her own safety (and later for that of Beloved). ), Denver misinterprets his mother's action as an indication of a terribly vague "something inside her" that cannot be controlled. Denver's long period of temporary deafness, an unconscious decision to protect herself from Sethe's narrative, is evidence of the power of her terror of the truth (as she sees it). A school teacher's cheerful assumption that it was "quite a testament to the results of a little so-called freedom imposed on people who needed all the care and advice in the world to prevent them from living the cannibalistic life they preferred" (p. 151) takes on a particularly unpleasant resonance in relation to Denver's story, because it.