Readers and critics of Toni Morrison have intense, most often negative, reactions to the ideas and scenes of child-killing throughout her novels Sula and Beloved. To these readers, the mothers who slay their children in these stories can only be characterized as cruel or unnatural. As a response to these reactions, this paper explores Morrison’s representation of a different, preservative side of motherlove that is clearly seen in the impoverished African-American communities Morrison portrays. By exploring how these novels deconstruct the Western image of a “good mother” and offer a differing view, this paper explicates Morrison’s counter-narrative of motherhood. Rather than a site of powerlessness for the African-American mother, I will show how motherhood can be a locus of empowerment and agency that resists the racist and sexist culture that surrounds the protagonists of Sula and Beloved.
About the presenterKalee Hall
Kalee Hall is an undergraduate student at Union University with a double major in English and French and a minor in Applied Linguistics. She is interested in critical theories of gender and race and plans to pursue these interests after graduating from Union by working toward a PhD in English.