Beloved: Fiction and Toni Morrison Essay

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When reading Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, it is easy to see how readers would question the actions of her characters. Some characters display behavior that would seem barbaric and cruel to the average individual. However, when delving deeper, it is easier to see how the severities of the characters’ actions are built on the psychological repression of their pasts. These pasts are filled with the traumas of slavery, and each character has suffered in his, or her, own way. However, the collective suffering can all be traced back to one character’s actions. Morrison’s main character, Sethe, has caused a great deal of pain to herself and to those around her. . . . All of Morrison’s characters have difficulty recovering from their pasts, and their relationships with Sethe do nothing to help them find their peace of mind. By looking at each character’s connection to Sethe, we as readers gain an understanding of their actions, and Sethe’s influence on such actions.
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Reader-Response Approaches

"A Response to Beloved" by Giuliana Selvaggio

Reader’s response is a reaction to literature, when reading literature like Beloved that is intricate and deep the reaction is similar. Latent themes and levels of ambiguity are techniques that the author uses to conjure up emotion and correlation that relate to our own personal experiences. With every new perspective and with every reading of ambiguous literature, we allow ourselves to grow and draw deep conclusions. Read the full essay . . .

"Nommo Barriers: Finding Bonds in the Chaos" by Gordon Gilmore

I am doing a reader response critique of the novel, yet I find that some analysis of the manner in which it is written is needed for me to show why I reacted to it in the way that I did. Some people found problems with the method in which New Criticism handled books and other works of fiction. They, first of all, found that the style of critique was too formulaic to really work with, and second of all, found that the style some things were written in did not really conform to the way
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