BLOG QUESTION:
Ponder the quotations below (from Carolyn Denard, a literary critic, and Toni Morrison, herself) Choose one for your initial response: What are your thoughts about the quotation you have chosen? You can agree, disagree, or qualify your response. Provide textual evidence to support your point. (Remember to identify which one you are responding to at the beginning of your post).
1. Interior History
“...history is not the sum total of the story
Morrison tells in this novel. She seeks
to get at the interior of that
history...”(Carolyn Denard). “The novel
is not about slavery. Slavery is predictable. There it is and there’s [information] about how it is, and then you get out of it or you don’t. [The novel] can’t be driven by slavery. It has to be the interior life of some people, and
everything that they do is impacted on by the horror of slavery, but they are also people”
(Toni Morrison).
2. Love
“The largest portion of the self-defining
humanity of the black characters in Beloved, surprisingly enough in a world filled
with hatred, is their manifestation of love—thick love, tiny love, jealous love,
thirty-mile love, self-love, family love, community love—the
modification of it, the protection from it, the overindulgence in it, the
guardedness of it, the insistence on it. Loving the self, the family, the friend, the
child, the natural world becomes a balm for the horror of
slavery. In the foreground of this text
is a story of the varying ways in which a
people tries to impart human love in inhuman times” (Denard).
3. In Medias Res (Latin for "in the middle of the action)
“The in
medias res opening that I am so committed to here is excessively
demanding. It is abrupt, and should appear so. No
native informant here. The reader is snatched, yanked, thrown into an
environment completely foreign, and I want it to be the first stroke of the shared experience
that might be possible between the reader and the novel’s population” (Morrison).
4. Fact vs. Truth
“...and the crucial distinction for me is not
the difference between fact and fiction, but the distinction between fact and
truth. Because facts can exist without
human intelligence, but truth cannot” (Morrison).
5. Art - Beautiful and Political
“I am not interested in indulging myself in
some private, closed exercise of my imagination that fulfills only my
personal dreams...The best art is not just beautiful language and technique. The best art is that which is irrevocably
beautiful and unquestionably politcal at the same time”
(Morrison).
Directions: You will be writing an initial response and 2 comments responding to your peers' responses. Your initial response must be 8-10 sentences in length and thoughtful. There are 65 students (both periods combined) so there will be 65 initial posts. Of these 65, you must respond to or comment on a minimum of 2 of them. These must be thoughtful responses and/or comments, at least 2-3 sentences in length. Please identify the person you are responding to in your comment so that it becomes more of a connected conversation; for example, "I hadn't thought of the point Hermione Granger raised about the blah, blah, blah, etc. Initial response is due by Wednesday night, January 13th by 11.59 p.m. Your responses will be due by Friday night, January 15th by 11:59 p.m.
Remember to be good citizens here -- no hurtful comments. Remember you can respectfully disagree with others. Show some thought here! I look forward to reading another great conversation!
Mrs. L
