But Some of Them Were Brave
But Some of Them Were Brave In Beloved, Toni Morrison uses the historical account of Margaret Garner (a young runaway slave who upon capture commits infanticide rather than release her baby to a life of human bondage) to create a novel that chronicles the affects of slavery on its victims – living and dead – in a manner that departs from the slave narratives represented in the dominant discourse. While the traditional slave narratives are autobiographical works that historically depict the experiences of slavery predominantly through a male gender lens with an apologetically layered narration (in an effort by authors to convince white readers of their humanity), Morrison’s work re-defines and re-writes history with a profoundly graphic narration that brings women from the margin to the center. Additionally, Morrison centralizes and animates discredited knowledge by using the “remembrances” of a former slave woman, and the overwhelming presence of a supernatural spirit in the thematic structure of the novel. For example, Morrison presents readers with a maternal dialogue that speaks to the ambiguities of motherhood within the ravishing parameters of slavery using the layered memories of Sethe, a former slave haunted by the spirit of her baby daughter who she murdered eighteen years earlier in an effort to “save” her from a life of slavery, and Beloved who represents the explicit reincarnated spirit of Sethe’s murdered daughter – and the implicit spirit of survivors of the Middle Passage.