Study Questions: Toni Morrison, Beloved, pp. 148-275

 

·        Consider all the questions from day one today as well.

·        Why does Paul D. leave?

·        Why does Sethe kill her children? Can this be classified as an act of resistance? Empowerment? Cowardice? Insanity? How should we as readers approach this act?

·        Why does the narrator change voices on page 215? And again on page 221?

·        Why the stream of consciousness entry?

·        How does Morrison ultimately deal with the legacy of slavery and the debt slaves are owed?

·        What do the characters in this book own? Do they own themselves? Why does Sethe continue to assert that “Beloved was mine”?

·        Why does Morrison end with the idea that this is “not a story to be passed on”?