Synthesis for Beloved

Throughout the course of this class, it’s rather apparent that race plays an important role throughout literary history, and history itself of course. The purpose of the Race in American Literature project has vastly opened my perspective to things I had not previously learned in history classes. Today, teachers focus on the historical impacts such as the laws that occurred because of the African Americans and hardly about their treatment. They discus the lynchings, but not how or why they are in that position. It’s moments like this where reading Claude McKay’s “The Lynching” would be a great source for history teachers to use to add a contextual background to the material. For example, from Maddie’s blog: “‘And little lads, lynchers that were to be, Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee’ (McKay 927) is especially unsettling. The idea that young children would dance around a dead body as if it gave them amusement is difficult to think about” (Braun The Lynching).

In my opinion, the imagery from McKay gave me a better understanding of how terrible the lynchings were instead of listening to a lecture about the hangings. Novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Beloved make statements that are relevant today. The novels also make main connections, including the differences between the way the slave’s experiences were represented, how male slaves were treated versus female slaves, as well as different religious symbols throughout the novels.

Referring to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, A Slave Auction Described by a Slave, written by Solomon Northup was a rather brief writing, explaining what slaves endured before and during an auction. They were taught to act like someone who wanted to be purchased, “exhorted us to appear smart and lively...he exercised us in the art of ‘looking smart,’ and of moving to our places with exact precision” (Northup 435). This piece continues to shock me because these people were treated like animals for sale, and Northup goes on to tell us how “Buyers would, ‘feel of our hands and arms and bodies, turn us about, ask us what we could do, make us open our mouths and show our teeth, precisely as a jockey examines a horse which is about to barter for or purchase’” (Northup 436). As if this wasn’t already nauseating to hear, that’s just the tip of the iceberg; women faced a different kind of hell.

Sexual abuse of the African American women was something that Stowe didn’t talk about as blatantly as Morrison did. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was supposed to be a political statement, but in my opinion, it wasn’t as strong as Beloved. Stowe’s novel had a variety of characters and stories, but it lacked the factual representation of what was actually going on. One author named Sophia Cantave wrote an article titled "Who Gets to Create the Lasting Images?” relating to the fluffiness of slavery and race in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

The writer acknowledges that the book is a very inadequate representation of slavery [because] slavery, in some of its working, is too dreadful for the purposes of art. A work which should represent it strictly as it is would be a work which could not be read; and all works which ever mean to give pleasure must draw a veil somewhere, or they cannot succeed”. In fiction, therefore, one can “find refuge from the hard and the terrible, by inventing scenes and characters of a more pleasing nature.” (Cantave)

If Stowe’s purpose was to persuade, she should have worried less about the art and more about the content. Make people feel uncomfortable. Make them change their minds about the past; by fluffing the story, it makes it seem like slavery wasn’t really all that bad if you could get masters as nice as the Shelby’s or the St. Clare’s. Beloved exploits the intolerable by opening up the grisly rape culture that was going on during the slave trades. Many times throughout Beloved, the reader is told Sethe’s rape story and about how the young men held her down and “took my milk” (Morrison 20)! Not only that, but her husband, Halle, witnessed the entire assault and didn’t help her. Beloved didn’t stop there -- it also included indentured servitude.

Amy Denver’s character provided a new view that I haven’t read anywhere else. Like the African American slaves, indentured servants were under the reign of a master. And also similar to the slaves, she was subject to the same punishments -- including rape. Nicole Coonradt states in her article “To Be Loved” that the “Sexual enslavement of women at the hands of sadistic masters, the most extreme subjugation of women in a white patriarchal culture that historically touched women irrespective of their ethnicity” (Coonradt 172). Since these people were treated so poorly, it would only make sense for them to have a belief system -- something to keep them moving through the trying times. That belief was religion.

Religion plays an important role in both of these novels. Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s main prophet is Tom himself. He represents many of the aspects from “The Cult of Domesticity”, especially piety, submissiveness, and domesticity. No matter how poorly he’s treated, he puts his master before himself. Tom says to St. Clare that he will not leave him, “Not while Mas’r is in trouble. . . I’ll stay with Mas’r as long as he wants me, --so as I can be any use” (Stowe, 279). In Beloved, the main prophet is Baby Suggs. Much like Tom, she was an “unchurched preacher” who “‘’busted her legs, back, head, eyes, hands, kidneys, womb and tongue,’ she had nothing left to make a living with but her heart -- which she put to work at once” (Morrison 102). These two characters both served as biblical figures, both haunted by something, yet are two individually strong characters who die. Why those figures must die is a question for another post.

When reading novels like this, you can’t help but compare it to present day news. When reading about Recey Taylor’s rape case from 1944 and about the injustice she received is mindblowing. Taylor said, "I can pray that things would be handled differently now than in the past” (Johnson). I think of all the women who were raped and received no justice because of their color and just prayed for a better future, and here we are, 2015. This project has helped me to include all races, all social and economic standings of all women who have suffered. Reading stories like The Woman Warrior by Kingston adds the Chinese aspect, Uncle Tom’s Cabin African American suffrage, and Beloved with indentured servitude as well as African American enslaved women. These novels and stories provide a different story for everyone which establishes a better understanding for humankind and its struggles throughout history.

Works Cited

Braun, Maddie. “The Lynching”. Blogger. Wed. 12 May 2015.

Cantave, Sophia, and Elizabeth Ammons. "Who Gets to Create the
     Lasting Images?

Coonradt, Nicole M. "To Be Loved: Amy Denver and Human Need
     -- Bridges to Understanding in Toni Morrison's Beloved."
     College Literature 32.4 (2005):168-87. JSTOR [JSTOR]. Web.
     11 May 2015.

Johnson, Bob. "Town Leaders Sorry for Handling of 1944 Rape
     Case."Msnbc.com. Associated Press, 21 Mar. 2011. Web. 11
     May 2015.

McKay, Claude. "The Lynching." The Norton Anthology of 
     American Literature. By Nina Baym and Robert S. Levine. 8th
     ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 927. Print.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved: A Novel. New York: Knopf, 1987. Print.

Northup, Solomon, and Elizabeth Ammons. Uncle Tom's Cabin:
     Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism. New
     York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, and Elizabeth Ammons. Uncle Tom's
     Cabin: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts,
     Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.

The Problem of Black Representation in Uncle Tom's Cabin."
     Uncle Tom's Cabin: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and
     Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. 582-95. 
     Print.