Morrison's BELOVED


MORRISON'S BELOVED: Prelude for a Reading

It is a phenomenon in search of a name that mothers, fleeing from inhuman abuse in Central and South America,  do not know the story of Margaret Garner ( b.__? --d.  1858 ).  Garner, her husband Robert, and their four children fled with other enslaved persons from Boone County, Kentucky to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1856.  The news got spellbinding coverage in the article "Stampede of Slaves: A Tale of Horror," The Cincinnati Enquirer, January 29, 1856. The phenomenon might acquire a name and habitation in our readings of Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) and in some 21st century equivalent of catharsis. Stress "might."  We might be following James Mustich's recommendation in 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die (Workman 2018) to negotiate Morrison's novel.  We might be admitting, finally, that narratives of slavery, enslavement, and choice are essential for making sense of the histories of the United States of America.  If, on the other hand, we are conservatives in denial of reason, we might be using Beloved to justify our ideological posture.  In the Age of Trump, all options prevail.

Morrison transformed Garner's story into a bit of classic American literature, into a novel that contains a tale of horror which is "not a story to pass on."  Most likely the pun in the phrase "to pass on" isn't accidental.  The pun is didactic.  For example, were the immigrant mothers of 2018 aware of either Garner's story or Morrison's retelling of it, might our media be salted and peppered with tales of infanticide?  Might we chatter with a modicum of perversity (and truly without benefit of Morrison's magic realism) about just how to locate infanticide in natural law, theory of justice, and the ubiquitous rule of law?  Between sips of iced coffee might some of us quote Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ----"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." ----along with Amendment Thirteen of the United States Constitution which has the loophole of "a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted"?  Would the  non-fictional horror of mothers killing their children  make us great and intelligent again?

These questions might beget responses no stronger than the cliché "Only God knows for sure."  We can rest assured, however, that attentive reading of Beloved provides us with an example of how  infanticide, a very moral remedy of last resort,  can haunt us without precluding the stain of guilt.  Medea's ghost broods with fabulous vengeance.  For good measure, a few of us might explore The Tragedy of Brady Sims (Vintage 2017) by Ernest J. Gaines to confirm what we do or do not have entitlement to consecrate and  pass on. African Americans are predisposed to write classic American literature.



Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            July 11, 2018

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