The words are ironic: “this is not a story to pass on,” a Pulitzer Prize novel literally asking to not be spread around (Morrison 290). The author repeats this phrase three times in the novel’s final chapter, drawing attention to their significance. Throughout the novel, graphic images of figurative and literal slavery mar the minds of absorbed readers. However, these eight words signify much more than a warning of the novel’s content. The characters in the novel must face the past rather than pass it on; likewise, for the readers, the novel itself is not a story to pass by.
The novel also describes the tendency of humans to repress and store memories. In figurative terms the words “pass on,” suggest that these memories do not die, making them unavoidable and eventually impossible to not pass by. In her novel Beloved, author Toni Morrison’s words “this is not a story to pass on,” create ambiguity that defines the novel in multiple ways. In doing so, Morrison comments on the necessity to recount the African American slave heritage, but at the same time, introduces the perils of dwelling on it.
The story revolves around the character Beloved, the misery that in one argument serves as the subject to not pass on. The townspeople, “remembering [it] seemed unwise,” which is affirmed by Beloved’s past actions enslaving Sethe and oppressing Paul D and the other town people with revived slave memories (Morrison 290). Figuratively, Beloved is “like an unpleasant dream during troubled sleep,” thus it optimally favors the townspeople to forget and not pass her on (Morrison 290). Beloved’s representation of slavery embodies the force of the past that bothers the citizens of Cincinnati so much.
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The many instances in the novel reveal this fact-Paul D for instance experiences “the taste of iron, the sight of butter, the smell of hickory…” which all store up “into the tobacco tin lodged in his chest” which “nothing… could pry it open,” however, Beloved serves as the character that can do this as her character constantly reminds Paul D of these memories, pushing him out of the house (Morrison 119). Connecting Morrison’s flashbacks of the excruciating slave memories that Paul D experiences to the consequences Sethe faces for taking care of Beloved reveal the author’s intentions to describe the novel as a story to “not pass on.” Furthermore, Beloved not only represents slavery of Paul D and Sethe, but also of the community as well.
Morrison gives Beloved experiences similar to that of the Middle Passage. On the Middle Passage, “there are… many stories of mothers throwing their infants overboard to save them from the horrifying conditions on board and bleak prospects ahead,” just as Sethe kills her daughter to prevent her from returning to slavery (Bell). Morrison describes in detail these horrors in Beloved’s narrative: “I am always crouching the man on my face is dead… some who eat nasty themselves I do not eat,” creating such imagery so painful that it could be understood why Beloved should be a forgotten nightmare and not be passed on (Morrison 221). However, the author intends differently, recalling the purpose of her best-selling novel is to inform readers of the African American struggles and suggest how to deal with the repressed memories.
Toni Morrison writes a novel more for the purpose of creating literature that is not to be passed by, rather than not passed on. According to one commentator, “the words of the epigraph to the novel, the ‘sixty million and more’ Africans and African-descended slaves who died in captivity and forced marches on the continent or in the Middle Passage… in attempts to escape a system that should have been unthinkable” (Foster). While the images of the story are not pleasant to think about, Morrison writes this novel as a memento of the brutalized slaves that we should not simply ignore in our history.
In fact, the characters try to do exactly this in Beloved, they try to ignore the past and press towards the future, living the fulfilled life of a family and financial stability. Paul D locks the memories deep in his tobacco tin while the town acts ignorant of the events that occur in 124. Beloved, the character to not pass by, “[hopes] Denver’s arm around her shoulders would keep them from falling apart” (Morrison 141). As a result of the town’s ignorance, the girl representing the past begins to collapse.
However, she remedies this issue by forcing Paul D to deal with his memories, Sethe with her past crime, and the town with a final confrontation-spiteful the sixty million plus African Americans long to have some remembrance. Despite, the words “this is not a story to pass on,” the author does not intend the horrors of the story to be dwelled on for too long, as the characters move on with their lives after Beloved leaves.
There is another meaning for the statement Morrison makes, which is the idea that Morrison’s story and the history of the slaves will not die. When Sethe kills her daughter Beloved, this is an attempt to literally and figuratively prevent a return to slavery. However, this attempt fails as Beloved lives on despite what Sethe does to her.
As a result of the “rustle of a skirt [hushing] when they wake, and the knuckles brushing a cheek in sleep” the critic, James Phelan, claims, “they may forget/repress-we may forget/repress—but Beloved is not thereby erased in history… once we acknowledge her presence in history, ‘things will never be the same,”” suggesting that the “not… pass on” also means never dying (Phelan 187). A further interpretation of this meaning is that the story, rather than going out because of efforts to not pass it on to others, it leaves a lasting effect even after the book is forgotten.
The novel recreates the effects of slavery and repressed history-“a story to not pass on”—one that everyone should come across and one that remains alive beyond the incidence. It traumatizes those that come across it, as the effects of slavery never vanish. Although the story never truly “passes on,” it optimally remains as resolved memories, in order to move on in life. As the book’s tragedies distance from the “never the same” reader, it will continue to be analyzed, subjected to interpretation, and impact millions who have yet to come across the story.
Works Cited
- Bell, Sophie. “This is Not a Story to Pass On: Teaching Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” I. New Haven: 1999. <http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1999/1/99.01.03.x.html>.
- Foster, Thomas. How to Read Literature Like a Professor. 1st ed. New York: Harper, 2003. Print.
- Morrison, Toni. Beloved: A Novel. New York: Random, 1987. Print.
- Phelan, James. Narrative as Rhetoric. Ohio State University Press: 1996. Print.
