Historical Context
The novel’s
narrative action mostly hovers between 1855 and 1873, though it was written in
1988. Certainly, Morrison intended for the novel to be considered more within
the historical context of American slavery and reconstruction, rather than the
Reagan Era and the twentieth century. Beloved is written as a response to
the Fugitive Slave Law that victimized Sethe and her family in 1855. The law was
part of a series of Congressional compromises designed to preserve a precarious
political balance between the northern “free” states and the southern
“slave” states. When “border states” like Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky
became an increasingly politicized issue, Congress intended for the Fugitive
Slave Law to stave off the inevitable – Civil War broke out less than ten
years after the Fugitive Slave Law was enacted.
The law’s
provision regarded “fugitive slaves” who had run away from their slave
masters and resettled in northern or border states. This was often done with the
assistance of Underground Railroad operators (like Ella) and northern white
abolitionists (like the Bodwins).
Southern plantation owners complained about their loss of income as a result of
the escaped slaves and at the same time, abolitionists in states like Delaware,
Ohio and Pennsylvania adamantly defended the argument that the contractual
relationship between slave and owner was null and void in free territory. At the
same time that this argument was being hashed out, the Dred Scott Supreme
Court Case reified the solvency of the master’s property rights over a slave
and Congress compromised by enacting the Fugitive Slave Law. Runaways like Sethe
might escape to a free state like Ohio, but should Schoolteacher find his lost
property he could legally return her to Sweet Home.
It is not
difficult to imagine the ensuing tumult as thousands of northern blacks – both
ex-slaves and “legitimately” freedmen – lived in the constant fear of
kidnapping or having their families separated. And Morrison is not the first
woman to write literature that speaks to this specific issue. About 130 years
before Toni Morrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe published her famous novel, Uncle
Tom’s Cabin. After her melodramatic excoriation of the slave trade and
searing indictment of the Fugitive Slave Law – specifically for its
anti-family consequences, Stowe become a moral figure for abolitionists and
others who sympathized with the plight of Negroes. Indeed, Stowe’s book was an
exhortation for compassion that stoked the flames of civil war. Morrison’s
novel, on the other hand, enjoys a chronological distance (and 130 years of
political progress) that allows a deeper psychological penetration without
political propaganda and maudlin sentimentality.
Nonetheless,
Morrison is well aware of the literary tradition within which she writes. The
Garner family and the Bodwins’ “Sambo” statue of a subservient,
self-deprecating Negro labeled “AT YO’ SERVICE,” is very much a response
to Stowe’s moral relativism. For Morrison, there is no such thing as a “good
slave owner” like the Garners. And even in regards to white abolitionists like
the Bodwins, Morrison is unwilling to accept nothing short of full respect of
all human dignity. The deliberate tension between Beloved and its
antecedent Uncle Tom’s Cabin invites us to challenge moral relativism
in our efforts to assess and re-assess American history and literature.
