Essay on Toni Morrisons Beloved - Misuse of Language

The Misuse of Language in Beloved nbsp; In Toni Morrisons Beloved many negative methods of communication used by the white people are effectively hijacked by the black people. nbsp;The black people create a completely new message and a positive form of communication. These forms of communication, in turn, empower the oppressed black people, providing channels for the expression of ideas, thoughts, and memories. nbsp; Such was the case in the American culture of the mid 1800s as depicted in Beloved because of the gap in the social status and power of black versus white Americans. The language of the whites was not able to effectively communicate the thoughts of all and was used many times as a method of coercion. Largely, I am†¦show more content†¦He separates black people from other human beings, likening them to some sort of combination of human and animal species. Put her human characteristics on the right, her animal ones on the left. This entire ideology, comparing certain kinds of human beings with animals, devalues the people of the minority to lesser beings. It essentially dehumanizes them. No doubt, plays a large role in the later scene when the boys take Sethes milk, as if she were a cow. nbsp; This all culminates to show the true ineffectiveness and abuse of the standard forms of communication. In fact, on page 175 when Paul D is considering what made them men at Sweet Home he says they could even learn reading if they wanted to--but they didnt want to since nothing important to them could be put down on paper. In other words, the things which were really important to them, possibly emotions such as love and pain, abuse and oppression, could not be articulated through mere words. The idea of the unimportance of traditional forms of communication is illustrated again on page 53. Paul D explains that when black people met on the road they remained silent, except for social courtesies. He said they neither described nor asked about the sorrow that drove them from one place to another. The whites didnt bear speaking on. Everybody knew. In other