It is very hard for any reader of Toni Morrison to escape her ‘black magic’. The reason is that this great Afro American writer speaks through history and ages in a language that is dipped in the dual hues of pain and poetry both. The two hundred years of horrid practice of slavery and its aftermath that was even more heinous can be well read in her works. She is the most exclusive Afro American writer who refuses to pen anything that is not concerned with the causes of her race. The language of sheer poetry that she uses is able to evoke any emotion of human heart. The Noble Academy of Swedish Academy said in its announcement of the Nobel Prize in 1993 for her: “She delves into language itself, a language she wants to liberate from the fetters of race. And she addresses us with the luster of poetry.”1
Racial pride oozes from the novels of Toni Morrison. In her fifth novel Beloved (1987) there are several dialogues and passages that speak how much she is proud of her community that was long thought and treated as inferior by other races. The novel is based upon the original story of a slave Margaret Garner, who in order to save her children from the brutalities of slavery had cut the throat of her infant daughter. In one of the passages of novel in which Baby Suggs, mother in law of the protagonist Sethe speaks to her folks is one of the most potent lessons given by Morrison in the subject of the spiritual, moral, and psychological elevation of black community. This can be done by adopting the principles of unity that begins with one’s love for self and his folks, unconditionally.
The volcanic anger of Morrison over the wreckage done by racial discrimination erupts out of the mouth of Baby Suggs when she says just a few lines later this passage, “There is no bad luck in the world but white folks”2. Here the writer seems to be totally engrossed in her history and in that unfortunate institution slavery- “Those three wretched syllables heavy with so much history.”3. In the passage there is the realization that the brutalities by whites had traumatic effects on the psyche of blacks. While writing this Morrison knows that interpellation by whites is still harming the self esteem and self estimation of blacks. She unleashes her sheer confidence in her race through her words from Baby Suggs mouth.
Baby Suggs tells her people to love themselves physically. They should develop a passion for their flesh and body because it is to be loved not be detested as whites do. White loath every organ of blacks. They even hate their eye no matter how much full of compassion and innocence it is. They are always ready to make it blind as ready they are to take the skin out of their backs. The hands of blacks were used only for taking – work and labor. If it wasn’t of any use they would chop it off. The idea of holding together all the hands that are hated by white masters is conveyed here. That can be the only way to overcome frustration of a discriminated life.
Of their mouths Baby Suggs says with an emotion mixed with anger:
…..they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they don’t hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leaveins instead.
We are convinced that to whites blacks synonymed only utility. They were treated as unanimated objects that feel no pain and that need not to be fed. They were behaved as God created them to be used and be threw away in hateful manner. Here black people are told ,”You got to love it”. Morrison endeavors to infuse the positiveness in her folks that despite other race’s rejection of them as second rated human beings, they ought to develop self love because the discriminations are devoid of any scientific base.
Slave narratives such as those by Olaudah Equiano ,Venture Smith and Harriet Jacobs tell us that any attempt on part of slaves to preserve his self esteem was badly crushed by his white master. Baby Suggs wants her fellows to neck and head high and straight with a sense of pride. She wishes to rub the gray memories of those dysphoric days of holding their head low in front of their masters. She says, ”…grace it stroke it and hold it up”. Not only this, all the internal organs as heart lever lungs too deserve to be loved because they are keeping alive a great human race capable of performing any task that could be done by any person of any race.
Slave narratives also expose the repulsive truth that slave women were treated as “breeding hogs” for reproduction so that master could get more labour force for his cotton, rice or tobacco fields. In this passage Baby Suggs tells to love not only “life holding womb” and “life giving private parts” but also their “heart” so thatthey can reproduce the best of their race who could deconstruct all the stereotyped images of blacks created by whites. Only a wish and an effort done by heart can do that.
This passage also defies the beauty standards set by whites. Morrison urges her people to love them as they are. They should never hate themselves because they don’t have blue eyes, yellow hair and white skin. Self love can beautify one from inside. In this sense it echoes the theme of Morrison’s first novel The Bluest Eye(1970) in which she talks how blacks often highly esteem white beauty parameters and crave for them. Such myth of physical beauty is busted by Baby Suggs.
Baby Suggs speech strictly reminds black people of their shared history of pain and misfortune that they were destined to abide during slavery. This recall can help them in bonding them with each other on a common ground. Their hands were together that why they could participate in and face Emancipation, Reconstruction and its failure, Post Reconstruction, and Civil Rights Movement with guts and gumption. But this togetherness should be cemented with more love.
Toni Morrison has painted the gray picture of the effects and after-effects of slavery. It crumpled the soul of her community and they took several years to come to terms with life. She, by means of her discourse on love and bonding, wishes to accelerate the progress of her race. This passage speaks on the potency of Toni Morrison as Novelist – Poet- Prophet of Afro American Community.
Footnotes
- Toni Morrison is the Winner of ’93 Nobel Prize in Literature”, by William Grimes, The New York Times, October 8, 1993.
- Morrison, Toni. Beloved (New York: Vintage Books,1987) pg. 105.
- Jhonson, Charles. Africans in America: America’s Journey Through Slavery.( San Deigo: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1998) p.3.