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Rationale
"I am Beloved. She is mine."
Why Teach Beloved?
For many adult Americans, the entire chapter of slavery in American history was comprised of a few pages in our history books. We were taught of its economic importance and of its historical importance as a leading cause of the Civil War. We remember the fantastic images of plantation life represented by Tara in Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, and the jovial Mammy who assisted Scarlet O'Hara through much of her life. Adults and young people today may think of Twain's celebrated work The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the good natured fatherly slave, Jim, who befriends Huck, and who perseveres despite the cold betrayal of Miss Watson or the childish torments Tom Sawyer creates for him at the Phelps farm.
What numerous generations missed was the true story of the brutality of slavery as told through the voice of a black writer who diligently researched the details of slave life from the harrowing Middle Passage, to the drudgery and abuse on average farms where slaves were lynched, sold, or tortured, to the fear and exhilaration of the journey on the Underground Railroad, to the continued mistreatment, prejudice and political injustices of the Post Civil War Reconstruction Era. This story emerged in 1986 with the publication of Toni Morrison's ground-breaking novel, Beloved. In Beloved, Morrison's main character, Sethe, not only informs the reader of many of the hidden details of American history, her "rememory" also helps to reform a story that has been obscured for over a century in American classrooms.
Why teach Beloved? It is time we embraced the truth of America's dirty little secret: the history of U.S. racism, instead of continuing to act as though it did not exist. We need to remember that whether black, brown, yellow, red, or white, if we are Americans, Beloved's story in both its elements of sacrifice and courage and terrific suffering and despair, is our own.
Censorship
A primary constraint in the decision to teach Beloved in many places is the issue of censorship. While it is true that this novel contains references to bestiality and sodomy which may prevent some teachers from using the text with ill prepared or immature readers, for the majority of advanced readers or schools with liberal pedagogies in place, the risk of personally offending someone is worth the reward of that person's intellectual growth. Beloved's complex narrative structure and strong historical context allow the text to be thoughtfully considered from a variety of critical perspectives. It is an ideal text to use to introduce high school students to literary theory as well as to interrogate the cultural implications and definitions of what constitutes history. Teachers considering using this book are well-advised to be sure their schools have a censorship policy in place. Three resources, which allow the class itself to address the issue of censorship, include the web sites Banned Books and Censorship and Humanities Interactive, and Gerald Graff's work "Organizing the Conflicts in the Curriculum" in Critical Theory and the Teaching of Literature (1996 NCTE). Graff in particular reminds us that if we "teach the conflicts", we are inviting students into a conversation which can further empower them as learners.
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