When I read this paper, I am tempted to correct it but do not. It offers me the opportunity to see my own growth. I have posted it because it may be of use to someone. Beloved is a book I read more than once for school, in my earlier days. It is an important book because it tells so much about our humanity and our lack of it. This may be of use to someone and therefore why not?
THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNITY
SILVA REDIGONDA
THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNITY
The role of a community provides a social perspective. This paper will demonstrate how the role of the community depicts prejudice and how judgmental the role of the community is. It will also illustrate how the community is utilized as a support system and how important that support system is in the texts Friend of My Youth[1] and Beloved.[2]
The role of the community in Beloved displays the mid nineteenth century politics in the United States. A black man is not considered a man. Slavery is the norm. Garner who is a slave owner states to community representatives that his slaves are men, though he refers to them as niggers: "Young boys, old boys, picky bolys, stoppin boys. Now at Sweet Home, my niggers is men every one of em. Bought em thataway, raised em thataway. Men everyone." (pg 10, Morrison). The response is the attitude of the general community: "Beg to differ, Garner. Ain't no nigger men." (pg 10, Morrison) The role of the community establishes the norm. Black men are less valued than white men are. Garner's perspective is that he is more humane than the rest of the community by referring to his "niggers" as men. This contrast is merely an illusion. Garner understands that his slaves are his property fully under his control. The illusion extends to the slaves. They believe what they have been engrained to believe: "He [Paul D] grew up thinking that, of all the Blacks in Kentucky, only the five of them were men." (pg 125, Morrison) This illusion shatters with Garner's death: "It was school teacher who taught them otherwise….One step off that ground and they were trespassers among the human race." (pg 125, Morrison) Unfortunately, prejudice extends to the very people being targeted.
Friend of My Youth depicts a twentieth century rural community in southern Ontario. The community does not refer to skin color to differentiate between people. The community targets a religion to explain what it does not understand: "The Grieveses worked hard and they were far from ignorant, but they were very backward. They didn't have a car or electricity or a telephone or a tractor. Some people thought this was because they were Cameronians- but in fact their religion…did not forbid engines or electricity or any inventions of that sort…"(pg 5, Munro). Both texts use the role of the community to illustrate a people somehow different from the community at large and demonstrate the response.
The community in Friend Of My Youth is a highly opinionated, passive observer. The role is important because it is the community who provides the perspective of most of the narration: "The story of Flora and Ellie and Robert had been told – or all that people knew of it – in various versions." (pg 8, Munro) The community in Beloved is active and often treacherous. There are two distinct communities in Beloved divided by the color of skin. "He saw a witless coloredwoman jailed and hanged for stealing ducks she believed were her own babies."(pg 66, Morrison). One mother does not hesitate to kill her offspring rather than have them subjected to slavery:"…there was nothing her to claim. The three [now four…] pickaninnies they had hoped were alive and well enough to take back to Kentucky, take back and raise properly to do the work…were not."(pg 149, Morrison) The role of the community demonstrates that white colored skin dominates and controls what is considered inferior. The devastating results of taking the life of loved ones, to avoid their enslavement and the lack of compassion, from the white community, compounds the monstrosity of this existence.
The narrator in Beloved demonstrates how Sethe is judged after killing her children, from her demeanor. Subsequently, there is no support from her peers:" Outside a throng, now, of black faces stopped murmuring. Holding the living child, Sethe walked past them in their silence and hers…A profile that shocked them with its clarity. Was her head a bit too high? Her back a little too straight? Probably. Otherwise the singing would have begun at once…like arms to hold and steady her on the way." (pg 152, Morrison) This lack of support is devastating: "to belong to a community of other free Negroes- to love and be loved by them, to counsel and be counseled, protect and be protected, feed and be fed- and then have the community step back and hold itself at a distance- well, it could wear out even a Baby Suggs, holy." (pg 177, Morrison)
The role of the Community in Friend Of My Youth is also quite judgmental. When Robert is permitted to continue living in the house after the death of Flora's father, the community feels responsible for her reputation: "Nobody knew how to speak to Flora about this being scandalous, or looking scandalous. Flora would just ask why." (pg 10, Munro). The community continues to support Flora but not her sister. When Ellie gets pregnant by her sister's fiancée and marries she is quick to be judged by the community: "God dealt out punishment for hurry-up marriages- not just Presbyterians but almost everybody else believed that. God rewarded lust with dead babies, idiots, hairlips and withered limbs and clubfeet. In this case the punishment continued" (pg 11, Munro)
The community's judgement does not have any direct effect in the lives of the Grieveses who remain detached from the community. But this detachment does not extend to Stamp Paid in Beloved. He realizes the impact the community has: "Stamp Paid, who had not felt a trickle of meanness his whole adult life, wondered if some of the pride goeth before a fall expectations of the townfolk had rubbed off on him anyhow- which would explain why he had not considered Sethe's feelings or Denver's needs when he showed Paul D the clipping [about the children being killed by Sethe]." (pg 11, Morrison)
The importance of the role of the community as a support system is noted in Beloved. Denver as a child seeks a house where other children her age go. She finds it and is accepted: "So she had almost a whole year of the company of her peers and along with them learned to spell and count. She was seven, and those two hours in the afternoon were precious to her."(pg 102, Morrison)
Slavery bounds men to each other to increase survival. This support system is more important than their own individual lives: "…all forty-six, would be yanked by the chain that bound them and no telling who or how many would be killed. A man could risk his own life, but not his brother's. So the eyes said, steady now, and hang by me."(pg 109, Morrison)
The community in Friend Of My Youth acts as an audience observing, judging and offering explanations. When Nurse Atkinson lets the community know that she would like a dance at the school house extended to her [for a cash collection] the community is divided: Some people thought it would be a disgrace to gratify her, a slap in the face to Flora. Others were too curious to hold back. They wanted to see how the newlyweds would behave." (pg 18, Munro). The community is watchful: "She [Nurse Atkinson] danced with every man present except the groom…" (pg 18, Munro).
The support system in Friend Of My Youth does not seem to be appreciated by Flora. Flora responds to the community gossip as: "malicious people, or unjustified conclusions. What happened in Flora's family was nobody else's business, and certainly nobody needed to feel sorry for her or angry on her behalf."(pg19, Munro)
The support system in Beloved is required because of the imbalance of power: "the lesson she [Baby Suggs] had learned from her sixty years a slave and ten years free: that there was no bad luck in the world but white people. They don't know when to stop." (pg 104, Morrison)
The community in Friend Of My Youth watches Nurse Atkinson renovate her side of the house leaving Flora's bare. Initially, the community supports Flora. Her indifference causes a change of that support: "…Flora's side was left bare. This strange open statement was greeted at first with pity and disapproval, then with less sympathy, as a sign of Flora's stubbornness and eccentricity (she could have bought her own paint and made it look decent), and finally as a joke. People drove out of their way to see it." (pg 17, Munro)
The role of the community in the texts Beloved and Friend Of My Youth establish the norm. Prejudice is projected in the form of slavery or religion. Regardless of its passivity or activism both can have an impact on the people targeted. How people are judged is an integral part of the amount of support offered. This may be needed, wanted or rejected. Ultimately the role of the community provides the social setting demonstrating how people interact in response to each other.
"Those white things have taken all I had or dreamed and broke my heartstrings too"
(pg 89, Morrison)
[1] Munro, Alice. Friend Of My Youth. Toronto: Penguin, 1995. References taken from the text will be indicated by a page number and author's name in brackets following the quote.
[2] Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Plume, 1998. References taken from the text will be indicated by a page number and author's name in brackets following the quote.
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