Interview With Toni Morrison :: essays papers

Im interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a honourable deal more about history, we automatically understand a long more about contemporary life. Also, in that locations more of the past for imaginative purposes than there is of the future. Q. Beloved is dedicated to the 60 million who died as a result of slavery. A staggering number -- is this proved historically? A. Some historians told me cc million died. The smallest number I got from anybody was 60 million. There were travel accounts of tribe who were in the Congo -- thats a wide river -- jointing, We could not get the gravy boat through the river, it was choked with bodies. Thats like a logjam. A lot of passel died. Half of them died in those ships. Slave trade was like cocaine is nowadays -- even though it was against the law, that didnt stop anybody. Imagine getting $1,000 for a military personnel being. Thats a lot of m onenessy. There are fortunes in t his country that were make that way. I thought this has got to be the least read of all the books Id write because it is about something that the characters dont deprivation to remember, I dont want to remember, black people dont want to remember, snow-covered people dont want to remember. I mean, its national amnesia. Q. You gave new taste into the daily struggle of slaves. A. I was trying to make it a in the flesh(predicate) experience. The book was not about the institution -- Slavery with a jacket crown S. It was about these anonymous people called slaves. What they do to keep on, how they make a life, what theyre willing to risk, however long it lasts, in order to relate to one another -- that was incredible to me. For me, the torturous restraining devices became a hook on which to say what it was like in personal terms. I knew about them because slaves who wrote about their lives mentioned them, and white people wrote about them. Theres a wonderful diary of the Burr family in which he talks about his daily life and says, Put the bit on Jenny today. He says that about 19 times in half-dozen months -- and he was presumably an enlightened slave owner.