Branigan Library is starting our 100 years of Pulitzer celebration on National Library Week, April 10 – 16!  Our first book discussion in the Reading Challenge – “Read 5 Books in 5 Months”! will be on Thursday, April  14^th at the library at 2:00pm.  We will be discussing “Beloved” by Toni Morrison.   

“Beloved” set in 1873-74, Toni Morrison examines the painful part of the African American heritage, slavery by “rememory” – “deliberately reconstructing what has been forgotten.” Morrison shows the physical and psychological effects slavery has on African American women.

  “Mixed with the lyric beauty of the writing, the fury in Morrison's...book is almost palpable...a haunting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath set in rural Ohio in the wake of the Civil War. The brilliantly conceived story...should not be missed.”  Publishers Weekly

Here is a list of some questions that we may discuss, please feel free to comment on these or other questions… Does the book engage you to keep reading?  What strikes you about the characters, plot, point of view?

 

Discussion Questions               

1. Consider the extent to which slavery dehumanizes individuals by stripping them of their identity, destroying their ability to conceive of the self. Consider, especially, Paul and how he can't determine whether screams he hears are his or someone else's. How do the other characters reflect self-alienation?

2. Discuss the different roles of the community in betraying and protecting the house at 124. What larger issue might Morrison be suggesting here about community.

3. What does Beloved's appearance represent? What about her behavior? Why does she finally disappear—what drives her departure? And why is the book's title named for her?

4. Talk about the choice Sethe made regarding her children when schoolteacher arrives to take them all back to Sweet Home. Can her actions be justified—are her actions rational or irrational?

5. What does the narrator mean by the warning at the end: this is not a story to pass on." Is he right...or not.
(Questions from LitLovers.com)  
Discussion Questions & More!               #Pulitzer100