How much love is bearable? Motherhood in slavery

Download or read book How much love is bearable? Motherhood in slavery written by Sabine Buchholz and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2008-01-08 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Siegen (FB 3: Literatur-, Sprach- und Medienwissenschaften), course: Slave Narratives, language: English, abstract: “If I hadn’t killed her, she would have died.” (119) It is a most horrible scene: A mother killing her own flesh and blood, out of deepest mother-love. Toni Morrison’s novel "Beloved" takes this gruesome deed as an approach to illuminate the tortuous and intricate slave mother/child relationship, a bond that in many respects reflects the atrocious nature of slavery. Hence, the essay aims at elucidating the significance and extensive meaning of maternity in Morrison’s extraordinary slave narrative.