Beloved by Toni Morrison

A modern reader hoping to understand the realities of enslavement around the time of the Civil War through fiction faces several obstacles. While slave narratives exist, slaves were rarely allowed to read or write, and conditions were hardly conducive to writing until after the Civil War. So the most famous novel of the time concerning slavery is Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an account written by white Northern woman.

In order to find an African-American comment on slavery, a reader is almost forced to turn to modern fiction. While The Wind Done Gone is one example, Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved is  the standard in this category. Beloved is story about a former slave woman who escapes to the North, but is still haunted by her experiences as a slave and the knowledge of what she did to make sure her former owner could never take her children.