1. Morrison and Others

2. The Bible “I call them my people, which are not my people and her beloved which was not beloved.” Romans 9:25 Next line – “and it will come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.” Morrison, implies then, that the African Americans are the new Chosen People.

3. Be Loved! An order from above.

4. Proverbs 16:18 Pride Goeth Before the Fall Baby Suggs – “Everything depends on knowing how much.” “Good is knowing when to stop.” Sethe – She is too proud to admit or discuss her decision. If they don’t want to talk to her, well, then, she doesn’t need them.

5. “When the four horsemen arrive...” Of the apocalypse... – we almost can’t help adding this phrase to that beginning. But, to claim that Morrison is a literal interpreter of the Bible or that she uses it in any way except symbolically, is too much. For example, Baby Suggs’ religion is almost anti-religion. She doesn’t tell people to love God and hate Satan, but to love themselves. Morrison subverts the Biblical as an expression of protest at the way it has been used to oppress African Americans. By overthrowing standard interpretations, Morrison is signposting another direction for us to take as readers.

6. Mythology Circe – for example, in SoS. So old as to be immortal. Signifies on the heroes of the Odyssey. The Bluest Eye, claims one scholar, is a rewriting of the Demeter/Persephone myth. Beloved as Gorgon – with her ropes of hair

7. The Seven Chakras that signpost the road from carnal to spiritual existence... Red, pink – instinct for survival Orange – sexual organs/reproductive urge Yellow – power Green – principles of love and unity Blue – communication Indigo – the third eye that receives knowledge Purple/violet or White – ultimate unity with the divine principle

8. Black Oral Tradition Signifyin’ – The verbal art of ritualized insult, in which the speaker puts down, needles, talks about (or signifies on) someone, to make a point or sometimes just for fun. Call/Response – Stories in the tradition are told in unceasing collaboration between the storyteller and the audience. Witness/Testify – Tangible proof that symbolizes or serves as evidence to validate your existence as part of the group. A concept that refers to a ritualized form of black communication in which the speaker gives verbal witness to the efficacy, truth, and power of some experience that all blacks have shared. One who witnesses has a responsibility to testify.

9. Some examples... The signal for Halle and his family to leave and Sixo’s death song are Call/Response songs, requiring a lead singer and an answering chorus. Baby Suggs in the clearing testifies to the horrors of black life and creates a call and response situation. The reader becomes witness to this event, and therefore responsible for passing on the story. The reader is also called on to respond, in this same sense, to go beyond the text with the knowledge gained from Baby Suggs.

10. Western Great Works – The Scarlet Letter, for example Hester Prynne and Sethe – outcasts with child. Scaffold scene in SL and wood shed scene in B. Sethe and her bloodstained child matches Hester and her Pearl. Slave catcher and Chillingsworth – gothic villians whose coldly calculated experiments and scientific measurements violate the “sanctity of the human heart.” Pearl and Beloved – both have multiple layers of meaning, the focal point which allows the reader to differentiate and assess the different points of view.

11. Morrison and Faulkner Stylistic similarities in their oeuvres A place from which to start A similar attitude toward time A way of creating sentences and of stringing them together (Especially the stream of consciousness chapters in Beloved) Multiple narrators/points of view Thematic similarities across their body of work Race is important to both authors Gender constructions are critiqued by both writers The complicated nature of truth The impact of the past on the present