Beloved 1

Below is an audio interview with Morrison. She speaks about Beloved, being a writer and her family.

Notes from the book Beloved As I read the book these are some of the notes I jotted down.

Toni Morrison received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Beloved won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. (taken from the back cover of Beloved)
As part of her Nobel acceptance speech, she said, "Language as power, language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names."

Names:
Sweet Home
Beloved
Stamp Paid
Schoolteacher
124
Unique to culture and time period. The referred to names remind me of some of the name choices made in Sea Oak. Both stories used unique names for important aspects to the underlying concept.

Location:
Kentucky
Ohio
One state holds freedom while the other represents suffering.

Style:
No chapters- 3 sections
smooth, steady
flashback

Content:
Mother/daughter relationship
Community
Slavery
Loneliness
Death
Love


Research:
Reading of the book in Middle School and High School- While doing research I found several websites, blogs and even YouTube videos of HS and MS students studying Beloved I do not know if I would read this book in either school settings. I feel that college students are more geared towards this book. I would have to sit and plan for the instruction of this book to bring it to a level of HS or MS students.


Please watch the video interview of Morrison here: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200811/20081119.html#
It is 2:45 and she is speaking about "her creative process and what drives her to write." It is really good to see how her art is created.

CJ