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I'm not original

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Image result for beloved images toni morrison


CN: historical trauma
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descriptions of conditions on trans-Atlantic slave trading ships


I know it's not an original reference by any means. I know everyone has had to read this book at some point in their post-high school academic lives if their universities had any humanities requirement. I know it's super basic to mention it, but this passage from this book so perfectly fits the prompt and reminds me so much of our readings that I have to mention it.

Of course, I'm thinking of the trans-Atlantic slave trading ship passage from the great Toni Morrison's novel, Beloved. 

When I first read Beloved, this passage struck me and totally disoriented me. I had no idea what was going on. I had to read and re-read it several times before I felt somewhat confident that I knew what I was reading and what it meant. However, it wasn't until I read the readings for this week that I understood how it fit into the rest of the novel.

 I have only read the book once, and it was a year or so ago, so please forgive me if I miss anything or slightly misrepresent some details. The passage is a sort of discursive, terrified mix of stream-of-consciousness first-person narration and stomach-churning description. The text abruptly switches between describing the agony of sickness, physical oppression, darkness, and fear to talking about the ship itself, the journey that was being taken, flashbacks to where they narrator had come from and rumors they had heard about what was to come. 

 The passage (of text) erupts in the middle of the book, seemingly incongruous with the rest of the plot. While the slave ship passage presumably takes place before the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807*, the rest of the novel takes place in the early Jim Crow era (late 19th century) in Ohio. The passage never mentions any names, dates, or any other kinds of anchor points which one could use to place it in time or in the context of any given person or family. 

 Up until this week, I appreciated the beauty of Morrison's writing and the horrendous pain she described in this passage, but I never understood how this floating bit of information fit in with the rest of the novel. Having read Heather Russell's introduction to Critical Paradigms in Race, Nation, and Narratology, I now see this passage in a new light. I can't speculate what was in Morrison's mind when she wrote the slave ship scene, but I can't help but notice how the style of narration she wielded knocked me out of my rigid notions of how stories are supposed to unfold. I almost feel as though she relays this scene as a flash of intra-generational trauma, perhaps a memory from one of Sethe's own ancestors, or even an agonizing memory dredged up from the collective unconscious. In any case, I tentatively put forward the notion that this passage represents what Russell refers to as an opening for ashé to enter through the power of the crossways deity Legba. Surely, it upset the binding notions of sequentiality and linearity that often dominate the epistemological and narratological worlds I inhabit.

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