Arguably the most important sign of the narrator’s development throughout the story is how he bases his own identity and how conscious he is in doing so. At different points in the book, his self-identity rests on different factors, such as how those in power view him, how his peers view him, and ultimately how he views himself. At the beginning of the book, he openly seeks approval from people such as the white leaders in his town, performing a speech for them. Regardless of their disinterested responses, the narrator pushes through literal pain, because he can only have self-worth if the white men find value in his words. At this point, the narrator believes the only path towards success is pleasing other people, and the narrator’s naivety only fuels this need to gratify others. Similarly (yet differently), when the narrator finds his place as a professional speaker for the Brotherhood, he still bases his self-worth based on the responses from the people; he still relies on others to...
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Perspective
Throughout Beloved, Morrison uses perspective and contextual shifts to affect how the reader (and other characters) views certain characters. When I think about this, one major example jumps out at me because of its ability to incite an emotional response within the reader: Sethe’s case of infanticide. In this case, the reader gets to see the story as seen by different people: Sethe herself and Schoolteacher/the slavecatcher (also from the newspaper clipping). By providing multiple points of views, Morrison gives the reader the opportunity to see Sethe in different lights. Sethe’s actions can be viewed through a lens of preservation and love, when analyzing her situation with all of the context in mind. When viewing the scene as seen by the slave catcher and Schoolteacher, the reader can fully take in the callous and evil threats/way of life that comes with living under slavery. As a third person ‘fly on the wall’, oftentimes it can be hard to fully immerse yourself with a character’s ...
I think that one of the points here is that there is no such thing, in Bigger's world, of what we would call a "normal" interaction with white people: he is always aware that he is under a kind of spotlight, that there are all these rules he has to follow, and his self-consciousness is acute during the entire interview with Dalton (which, on the surface, is entirely friendly and benign). It makes no difference whether or not we consider Dalton himself "racist," either in his business practices or his personal interactions, because this context of racism is deeply built into the dynamic from the start. In some quite literal sense, Dalton primarily exists in relation to Bigger in a *structural* sense.
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