Critical Commentary-Final Project

     I read an article by Charles Sheel, called "Toni Morrison's Beloved: a traumatic book on the trauma of slavery?"  http://www.academia.edu/760890/Toni_Morrisons_Beloved_a_traumatic_book_on_the_trauma_of_slavery_
The above link is the link to this article if you are interested in reading it.

     In this article Charles Sheel cover many different topics, his first topic is saying how he see the work with shocking evocations, stunning poetry, and bewildering complexity. During his writing about this topic he brings up the question if this work belongs to the African Community or is it a universal merit. He believes that this book is written more for the African populating, he uses an example of how a young black girl would find her identity while reading this book, and how that is more powerful then a universal entertainment.
     His next topic he covers is; who's afraid of Beloved's ghost? Or a text-book case of a magical realist narrative mode. Sheels rises the question if it was smart to base a book on the topic of slavery and have it set in a "haunted house." Because of Morrisons choice to do so, the book has been given a magical realism type theme. He debates if the book is more of a magical realism then any other genre.
     Sheel then goes into trying to answer questions in the book by summarizing some major themes. He says:,

"Beloved is clearly set in history and both its bewildering structure and heterogeneous style reflect the immense problem – for the narrator and most of the characters – of how to tell about mostly traumatic experiences involving people who were usually illiterate, whose memories of the past and control over existential choices had to a large degree been erased by slavery in the South, and whose present lives in post-Civil War Ohio were till heavily restricted by racial prejudice and social marginalization. Magical realism, then, does strengthen the grotesque and Gothic aspects of this tale– with the unavoidable side effect of weakening its claims to realism – but it accounts only for a fraction of the poetics at work. Who's charmed by the poetic language and exaltation of Beloved's authorial narrative voice? Or the case for marvelous realism."

 Morrison's next topic is this; Conclusion : Who's afraid of “Toni Morrison's Beloved”?Or the case for the flawed masterpiece

"A great amount of attention has been given to what Is perceived as the single most revolting act, the murdered by the mother, around which the book's plot develops. Plenty of the critical discussion turns around the question: “to be a slave or to die?” The phrase “Sethe's choice” comes up repeatedly in the critical literature on Beloved. There is a certain cleverness about it, no doubt, but come to think of it, Sethe did not choose to kill her children. For when the scene is finally described, it is clear that she acted in a split second when seeing School teacher's appear above the hedge and grasping immediately that she couldn't outrun those four horse men of the Apocalypse. In other words, she acted in the heat of panic and not at all with any benefit of thought or time to weigh any pros and cons. "

Through out Sheels analysis of the book, mostly towards the end, he tries to explain the acts of the characters. I think that Sheels main point overall is that he gives credit to Morrison for the amount of explicit scenes she had written about. He states how some film makers were wanting to take out the language or the sex crimes. But honestly that would be trying to sweeten up how bad the history was. Through Sheels analysis I have realized that when authors write, sometimes the more detailed they are the more emotionally attached a reader can get. Toni Morrison made her characters potray a feeling of guilt through out most of her novel. I think this was a smart choice, because our nation should feel guilty about our actions in the past. To make African Americans and other races go to as desperate measure to have to kill their own child and feel guilty about it. We should feel guilty for them. We should take their guilt and put it on our shoulders.