Biblical Allusions In Toni Morrison's Beloved

“I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved” (Romans 9:25). Toni Morrison’s Beloved is filled to the brim with allusions, specifically and most often to the Bible. In using a verse from Romans as her epigraph, she sums up the entirety of her novel in a few simple words. The novel is about acceptance and a mother’s love. They who were not previously her people will become known as her people, and those who were not previously loved will become beloved. This religious preaching of tolerance and caring is provided as an encapsulation of the entire novel, and helps readers understand exactly what the novel is about. Throughout Beloved, there are several other major examples of religious allusion.

Baby Suggs as a character is very important to the successes of Sethe, her family, and the community that surrounded them both. She is highly respected and deeply cared for—a truly important figure to her peers. By comparing her to Jesus, Morrison conveys the importance and veneration held towards Baby. With a clearing in the woods as her church, the character known as Baby Suggs, holy works to caution, love, chastise, and sooth the members of her community (102). Baby Suggs, holy summons people of all ages to her clearing, invoking bone-rattling emotions and working to heal deep rooted pains and sorrows. When Baby Suggs, holy calls out, “Let the children come!” she is taking dialogue from Jesus, who according to Matthew, similarly commanded, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Morrison 103; New International Bible, Matt. 19.14). By equating a character to Jesus, Morrison makes it quite clear what the reader is to think of that character. The epitome of divinity and holiness, Baby Suggs should be considered by the reader a true saint. This method of characterization is both powerful and easily-understood, another mark of Morrison’s command over the English language and her elegant, precise writing. Again and again, she uses biblical allusion to add clarity and meticulous detail to her novel without

The South was disallowed from seceding, which angered them a great amount. Taking their anger out on their former slaves, they continued to treat them horrifically. The black community felt defeated. Sometimes driven by racism to turning on each other, tensions existed between African-Americans as well. With a goal of explaining these tensions and educating readers on the difficult issues that slavery created, Toni Morrison wrote Beloved. The religious allusion in Beloved serves many purposes. Creating a common ground for greater mutual understanding, religious allusion expands the audience and greatly helps to clarify many aspects of Morrison’s writing. Everyone knows the Bible, allowing for more universally reaching storytelling through her characterization, narration, and metaphorical writing. While painting vivid pictures of grandiose feasts, imminent apocalyptic destruction, and heavenly preaching figures, Morrison fashions unique identity and easily-comprehendible scenes. The many biblical allusions in Beloved help to universalize the novel, also serving a purpose of providing solid education in territory previously unknown to many modern readers. Ultimately, Morrison had several major goals in mind, as described in her epigraph. Beloved was written in order to describe messages of acceptance and a mother’s undying love. In order to describe how tensions in the United States changed and