Toni Morrison s Beloved, Traumatic Memories From The Past...

Within America’s history there are sixty million and more African Americans with untold stories lost forever. To those voiceless, the cruelties of slavery brought suffering and loss. Cruelty involves causing pain to another, but at its core it has a much more deeper meaning; it is when an advantage over another being is unnecessarily used to inflict lasting damage and humiliation out of pleasure and self-fulfillment from the perpetrator. As seen in author Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, traumatic memories from the past linger among the characters as they try to deal with slavery’s scars and move forward in life. Cruelty appears in the novel through the people who profited from dehumanizing slaves and the victims who lived under oppression, which shows how a white supremacist society can have harmful long-term effects on a person’s psyche in relation to behavior and self-image. A main issue that occurred among former slaves was the difficult rebuilding of identity since they were made to feel like nothing more than cattle under the slavery system. African Americans laid in the mercy of their owners who methodically broke down the spirits of the enslaved until they lost all hope of obtaining individuality. Former slave and Sweet Home inhabitant, Paul D, expressed anguish over feeling dehumanized in the lines, â€Å"Schoolteacher changed me. I was something else and that something was less than a chicken sitting in the sun on a tub† (72). To feel worth less than a chickenShow MoreRelatedBeloved Essay3346 Words   |  14 PagesBeloved Essay In today’s modernized world, it is crucial to be able to comprehend and recognize conflicts dealing with racial tensions due to the increased growth of diversity in nations all over the world. Countries like North America are inhabited by people of different backgrounds, cultures, and colors. Since there is intermingling among everyone, the differences between the diverse ethnic backgrounds could stir up trouble which can lead to serious skirmishes like Watts Rebellion in 1965. To