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An Overview of Magical Realism
Magical Realism can be interpreted and defined in many ways. That being said, our group has come to a genuine consensus of what it means to us as a collective. For us Magical Realism calls attention to a deep truth. What we mean is that the Magical Realistic elements of a story tend to have a double meaning. One example, Magical Realism can be a way for oppressed groups to call out their oppression in a less directive way, or in a way that doesn't demand repercussions. So often these texts are from postcolonial, especially Latin American and Caribbean societies, and the magical realism texts use those double meanings and fantastical elements to counter colonialism. Overall, we all came to the same idea – that it is used as a subtle way to represent some sort of problem. An ugly truth that needs to be presented with subtlety in order to avoid backlash.
“Magical Realism--We recognize the world, although now--not only because we have emerged from a dream--we look on it with new eyes. We are offered a new style that is thoroughly of this world, that celebrates the mundane. This new world of objects is still alien to the current idea of Realism. It employs various techniques that endow all things with a deeper meaning and reveal mysteries that always threaten the secure tranquility of simple and ingenuous things” (Franz Roh. Magic Realism: Post-Expressionism (1925). Magical Realism. Ed. L. P. Zamora and W. B. Faris. Durham: Duke UP, 1995. p. 15-32.).
Background Information
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison talks about Beloved in this video.
In her foreword, Toni Morrison mentions leaving her job as an editor in 1983. Her newfound freedom caused her to consider what "free" could possibly mean to women. In the eighties," she says, "the debate was still roiling: equal pay, equal treatment, access to professions, schools...and choice without stigma" (XVI). This train of thought took her to a place where women had no freedom whatsoever. She recalled the case of Margaret Garner and decided to retell her story in a fictional sense.
Margaret Garner was a young slave woman who ran to Ohio from her master in Kentucky. She took with her her husband and children--two boys and two girls between the ages of nine months and six years. When their refuge was surrounded, Garner killed her two-year-old daughter and attempted to kill her other children rather than allow them to be put back into slavery. As a "modern Medea," Garner's case sparked "the longest fugitive slave case of [that] era" while the courts debated whether to try her for murder or destruction of property. The Fugitive Slave Law (explained below) was upheld and the family returned to Kentucky where they were sold to a Mississippi plantation on which Garner later died of typhoid fever.
Although Morrison successfully creates this figure in Sethe, she says that "the figure most central to the story would have to be her, the murdered, not the murderer. The one who lost everything and had no say in any of it. She could not linger outside; she would have to enter the house" (XVIII).
Schoolteacher finds Sethe and this leads her to murder one child and attempt to murder her other three. The Fugitive Slave Act was repealed in 1864 but demonstrates the tense atmosphere where blacks felt unsafe and persecuted, which they were. This atmosphere pervades the language and feelings in the book as well as affects the events that take place. Although the law was repealed, slavecatchers still hunted runaway slaves and injustice against blacks was still rampant.
The act was a solution to a need (expressed by slaveholders) for more effective law for reclamation of fugitive slaves. The first fugitive slave law was passed in 1793, but this law made it difficult to persecute slaves. The new law, the Act of 1850, was passed to appease southerners because the union was adding California as a free state and that would create an imbalance in free/slave states. The Act of 1850 required citizens to assist in recovering escaped slaves, and gave fugitives no rights in jury trial. As a result, fugitives fled to Canada, slave catchers were everywhere, and even free blacks were captured and sent south without an option to defend themselves in court. The law caused an even deeper divide in the country's citizens on the issue of slavery, strengthening the position of antislavery more than appeasing slaveholders. So, during the time period of the novel, slaves were escaping from their masters and going north, but even there they weren't safe from slavecatchers. No matter where they went, they could still be persecuted and have no way to defend themselves. You can also see the effects of the deeper divide in the actions of the whites in the novel who support the freedom of the fugitives.
Womanism
Beloved was written in 1987 in the post-Civil Rights Movement era of black nationalism and feminist theories. Black women found that the Second Wave of Feminism did not accurately meet their needs, which prompted Alice Walker to coin the phrase "Womanism" in her piece In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. The womanist approach is more universal and intersectional than a feminist approach, as it takes sexuality, class, race, and other issues into account when striving for gender equality. For example, the popular quote that a woman makes eighty cents to a man's dollar only applies to white women against white men; in 2012, African-American women made only sixty-eight percent of white men's earnings, while white women made eighty-one percent (American Association of University Women). Though Walker's definition has its flaws with regards to universalism, as it puts women on a spectrum of "feminists" to "womanists," the concept of womanism is a direct response to the lack of attention so-called feminists called to such universal issues (Collins). The oppression that minority women face is due not only to gender, but a combination of gender and race (as well as other factors).
Statistics source:
American Association of University Women. "What Does Race Have to Do
With a Woman's Salary? A Lot." Economic Justice, 26 Apr. 2013. Web 24 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.aauw.org/2013/04/26/race-and-a-womans-salary/>
Annotated Bibliography
Bell, Bernard. "Beloved: A Womanist Neo-Slave Narrative; or Multivocal Remembrances of
Things Past." African American Review 26.1 (1992): 7-15. PDF.
This article presents Beloved as a womanist text that intimately captures the conflicting roles of woman and non-woman as portrayed by Sethe. Using the concept of double-consciousness as proposed by W. E. B. Dubois, Bell argues that Sethe's "quest for social freedom and psychological wholeness" is a result of the separation of her identities as woman and ex-slave. Sethe struggles to accept combine her social standing with elements of black feminism and womanism that appear to be a commentary from Morrison, who wrote the book during the womanist movement of the late 1970's/early 1980's.
Booster, Joel. "Who is Beloved?" Deconstruction Approach Essay. Millikin University English
Department, 2007. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.
<.http://faculty.millikin.edu/~moconner/beloved/Booster-deconstruct-essay2.html>.
In the essay, “Who is Beloved,” Booster argues that Beloved's character is meant to take the form of an allegorical pain the characters have felt, a regret that haunts them. He Explains Morrison does not try to reconcile Beloved's existence, she makes her appearance on “124” mysterious, and her behavior even more mysterious. This is demonstrated by the way she behaves when no one is around she becomes idol until any one pays attention to her and constantly seeks others for attention. Booster states that Beloved is not just a physical manifestation of Sethe's regret but a physical manifestation of the pain felt by the rest of the characters, for Paul D it is the loss of his masculinity, and for Denver is the jealous rage felt by being neglected by her mother, “We see through the eyes of the narrator that Beloved is neither Sethe’s, nor anyone else’s—merely a ghostly manifestation of pain that is associated with Sethe, but effecting everyone else as well,”(Booster). He also argues that Beloved not only represents pain within the characters but pain within the freed slaves, and serves as a unifying force; by the end of the novel everyone in the community expels Beloved from the house then seeks to forget her, they seek to let go of the pain of the past.
Collins, Patricia Hill. "What's in a Name? Womanism, Black Feminism, and Beyond." The
Black Scholar 26.1 (1996): 9-12. Print.
This article compares the discourse around referring to the feminist movements of women of color (WOC) as "womanism" versus "black feminism." Womanism comes from Alice Walker's In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens, and combines gender inequality with race and class inequality experienced by WOC--specifically black women--in the 1970's. Walker, however, also establishes that white women are feminists, but black women have reached the end point of the spectrum and have become womanists. This directly contradicts Walker's claim that womanists are universalist in their approach to inequality, and stems, according to the author, from black nationalistic pride.
"The Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act." PBS. WGBH Educational Foundation,
1998. Web 23 March 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html>.
This webpage summarizes the reasons for the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and its consequences on both the black and white communities of the country. It gives general background of the events and circumstances leading up to the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act, explaining how such a controversial law could be passed during this time, and how the country reacted to it.
Dueker, Kerry. "When a Man Becomes a Women (And Vice Versa)." Feminist Approach
Essay. Millikin University English Department, 2007. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.
<http://www.millikin.edu/english/beloved/Dueker-feminist-essay1.html>.
In her essay Dueker argues that Beloved is an essay that tells the story of one family, but represents the “60 million and more” to whom the book is dedicated. She examines the binary of Sethe and Paul D who are the reader’s first-hand account of the horrific results of human bondage in detailed ways. “Although only Sethe bears the physical disfigurement of her beating, both characters carry internal scars that serve as bitter reminders of their time at Sweet Home. Those defacements have twisted both of their personalities and made them into people they were not meant to be” (Dueker). The bulk of her argument is that Paul D has been emasculated because of slavery. That it has stolen his manhood, and this in turn has forbid him from making decisions for himself. She also argues that Sethe’s experiences take away her femininity, causing her to adapt conventionally masculine traits in order to ensure hers and her family’s survival.
Ella Tait Fay, Arin A. The Bluest Eye. Digital image. The Ambassadors Magazine. N.p., Jan.
2009. Web. 25 Apr. 2014. <http://ambassadors.net/archives/issue25/profile3.htm>.
Canadian artist Arin A. Ella Tait Fay composed this image, and added her own meaning to her painting. For the use of my project the motion of death of the author will be used - except with this painting. Adding my own values and deconstruction of it.
Morrison, Toni. "Foreword." Foreword. Beloved. New York: Vintage Books, 2004. XV-XIX.
Print.
Toni Morrison's foreword to Beloved explains the author's motivations for writing the novel. Her inspiration came, in part, from leaving her job and considering what "freedom" really meant, which led her to thinking about a time when true freedom was a rare possibility for black people, and when it meant even less for black women. She also describes her goals for writing the book and briefly touches on her methods.
Osagie, Iyunolu. "Is Morrison Also among the Prophets? 'Psychoanalytic' Strategies in
Beloved." African American Review, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1994): 423-440. Web 24 April 2014.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/3041978>
This paper asks a few main questions that pertain to Beloved's existence: "Is the young woman who enters Sethe's life her daughter come back from the grave? Is Beloved someone else whose identity must be discovered? Does Beloved really exist?" (425). Osagie presents two different schools of thought that try to explain Beloved's presence. One school of thought believes that she is the baby come back to enact revenge on her mother, Sethe, while another school of thought believes that Beloved is not related to Sethe at all. Osagie sets out to show that these two explanations "are not exclusive of each other but complementary" (426). To do this, Osagie uses psychoanalysis to examine the interaction between the plot, characters, reader, and author, and how this interaction creates meaning. As she discusses Beloved's character, she touches on her ghostlike qualities and provides examples that support the interpretation that Beloved is the ghost of the baby that Sethe had killed.
Rhodes, Jewell Parker. “Toni Morrison’s Beloved: Ironies of a “Sweet Home” Utopia in a
Dystopian Slave Society.” Utopian Studies 1.1 (1990): 77-92. JSTOR. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
In this article, Jewell Parker Rhodes examines the use of memory (and “rememory”) within Beloved. Rhodes also brings to light the cruel irony of Mr. Garner’s treatment of his slaves and how, through “blatant denial of the horror of slavery [and] its failure to remember and recognize the difference between freedom and slavery, [Sweet Home] left [slaves] unprepared to survive in Reconstructionist society” (77). Rhodes discusses the way Mr. Garner treats his slaves like “disenfranchised” sons and how he exerts his superiority over them even as he calls them “men.”
Ríos, Alberto. "Magical Realism: Definitions." Ríos Resource Bank. Arizona State University,
23 May 2002. Web 24 April 2014.
<http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/resourcebank/definitions/>
On this webpage, Ríos provides multiple definitions of magical realism gathered from various sources that encompass the viewpoints of different writers and scholars. Although the source is older, it still gives a thorough view of magical realism and provides the wisdom of relevant authors and scholars. The definitions span from a general understanding of the genre to a focused look at what the genre does and why, giving the reader a deep conceptualization of magical realism.
Rodriguez, Junius P. "Fugitive Slave Act (1850)." Slavery in the United States: A Social,
Political, and Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2007. Credo
Reference. Web. 24 April 2014.<http://ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/login?
qurl=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/abcslavery/fugitive_slave_act
_1850/0>.
This article talks about how the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 deepened the divide between abolitionists and slaveholders. It summarizes the failure of the previous fugitive slave law and what the 1850 law entailed. This article details some effects of the new law and then talks about the increase in anti-slavery sentiment in the wake of the law.
Walters, Delores M. "Margaret Garner." MargaretGarner.org. n.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
Delores Walters explains the true historical basis of Beloved's main character. Sethe is based on a real person, Margaret Garner, who committed an unthinkable act in order to keep her children out of slavery. Walters says, "The Garner case symbolizes Black women's determination to resist their enslavement. In a single act of defiance, Margaret destroyed the master's "property" and his progeny."
