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Abuse And Violence In Toni Morrison's Beloved

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As I reflect on the readings from the last three weeks, I’ve been pondering on the idea of abuse and violence. I’ve asked myself critical questions such as, are abuse and violence one in the same? Are they different? How? I haven’t come to much of a conclusion but I believe that linguistically they are gray area. In theory, they mean the same thing, but in certain contexts they aren’t always rendered synonymous. Is it possible that violence is this abstract notion that can be characterized as abrupt and confined by time and that abuse is long term? It seems that this may be the case as I examine common themes of toxic masculinity and patriarchy, overlapping concepts that can be a result of the other, as forms of gendered violence that are …show more content…

As a result of the way the way that one may cope with the violence, and subsequent abuse inflicted upon them, they are rendered ineligible as a victim of violence if it conflicts with this normalized and uniform idea of moral. This was exemplified by the way we as a class assumed evil onto Sethe for committing infanticide. The term infanticide is a linguistic method of criminalizing and rendering this act immoral because when we give something a word, we give it connotation. Giving language to something is a step in the way in which we render someone ineligible for victimhood. This is further exemplified in Thomas A. Fosters’ article, “The Sexual Abuse of Black Men under American Slavery.” As a society we have certain ideas, characteristics, and experiences that we have associated with the word man. As a result, we have positioned and often characterized the man as the abuser, rather than the abusee, and a force of violence, rather than something that violence is forced upon. In turn, we have rendered the man ineligible as a victim of sexual …show more content…

A subtle way that I was drawn to was on page 65 when Dana states, "We 're going to have to fit in as best we can with the people here for as long as we have to stay. That means we 're going to have to play the roles you gave us." The act of having to assume on a role is what I would argue to be emotionally and mentally violent, and the notion that there are specific roles that Dana and Kevin must play just as heteronormative people alludes to patriarchy. When we take into consideration race, it is further complicated by racism and how systems of oppression overlap to exacerbate violence and abuse . These all appeared to be common themes throughout the readings and I am still trying to navigate this complex web of semantics, implications, and impact throughout

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In addition to that, the black community isolated Sethe because she did something that the community considered wrong. Black feminism will be the approach utilized here to see the oppression of woman of color because it includes sexism, classism and racism. Since the female characters are very dominant in the novel, a black feminist approach should be very effective and it enables one to see how the female characters deal with the past and live with it in the present, what motherhood mean to the female characters, and how much the past influences the female characters who lives in the present. The end of the novel reveals the forgiveness and the acceptance not only of the black community toward Sethe’s choice (killing her daughter) but also of the white people (the Bodwins) who accepted Denver to work for them. This reconciliation shows that the courage and the will to get rid off from the past to live side by side peacefully and to move toward the future together.

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Actually, what Morrison has called “Paradise” is quite a misleading concept to the readers’ expectations. P. Fultz contends that “The nature of Morrison’s paradise must be interrogated” (38).Morrison thus subverts the conventional connotations that the title carries since the first lines of the novel illustrate the destruction of thisparadise,"They shoot the white girl first. With the rest, they can take their time”(3). The next pages of Morrison’s novel bring to light the reasons that have sparked the above violent scene. As a matter of fact, many studies have been conducted on the struggle between Ruby’s men and the Convent women and theensuing violence and fierce actions towards the women.

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