Historical Context of Beloved, Morrison

The novel Beloved, written in 1987 by Toni Morrison, is a story about the life of an escaped slave named Sethe during 1873. The novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988, is based loosely on the life of a slave named Margaret Garner. The story revolves around the death of Sethe's baby, whom Sethe murdered to save the baby from slavery. The ghost of the baby is thought to haunt the house that Sethe and her only remaining child, her daughter Denver, live in. "124 was spiteful"(Morrison 3) reflects the personification of the house and its ill feeling toward those inside of it, possibly from the ghost of the baby that had been murdered. The story of Beloved was traced back to the actions of Margaret Garner, who killed her two year old daughter in fear of her being captured by slave catchers. There were many court cases and legislation that defined race throughout American history. Defining moments in American history influences the story of Beloved as well as the way we portray contemporary race relations. The historical background of Beloved is reflected in many different aspects. The historical time period the novel is based in is surrounded by legislation and court cases that define race during Beloved's era helps to see the period in context as well as the story of Margaret Garner, which the novel is based on.

Margaret Garner, whom the novel is based on, was a slave before the Civil War who murdered her own child. In the pre-Civil War era, when blacks had no rights, Margaret Garner and her family ran away from the plantation they worked on as slaves, running to Ohio, a free state. The group used the Underground Railroad as a means of getting to the home of a freed slave named Kite. A group of police and slave catchers eventually found the whereabouts of the slaves and, instead of giving up her children to slavery, Margaret Garner took the life of her two year old daughter.