Sweet secrets : a cross referencing imagery index of Beloved by Toni Morrison : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)
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Abstract
Toni Morrison is one of the greatest modern writers of our time. Her arguably greatest work, Beloved, is rich with dense imagery that references such varying topics as African mythology and the Bible. Though there are many scholarly papers on the themes in Beloved, there are not so many that focus on the images in the novel. The articles that discuss imagery are not comprehensive; they only discuss one or two in detail. Therefore, the website I created attempts to index all of the major images in Beloved according to seven major categories: mythology, biblical references, color, nature, history, community, and milk. For each image, I included an explanation of the purpose, history, and possible meaning of it in lieu of Beloveds major themes. As a whole, these images evoke the horrible conditions of slavery in the United States while at the same time respecting the lost culture and history of the enslaved Africans who managed to survive the Middle Passage. Beloved serves as a worthy memorial to the millions who died and the connection to a proud, ancient culture that died with them.