Toni Morrison's novel Beloved is centered around a true story of Female slave and her struggles. The whole novel is written from the African American point of view. Morrison uses a combination of symbolism as well as language and imagery to paint this horrific account of slavery. Beloved is a very emotional tale written with great style and eloquence
             Toni Morrison did a lot a research before she began writing Beloved. When she first started the story she was going to do a piece on "self-murder and the way one can kill and sabotage themselves with the best intentions." During her research she came upon the story of Margaret Gardner, who was a 20 year old slave woman who ran away from Kentucky, When she was found in Ohio she went to a shed and proceeded to kill her children. From this information she created her Character Sethe. For a mother to kill her own children she was saying that she valued their lives so much that she did not want them to go through th pain and suffering of slavery. This act of love was rarely occurring because the unspoken rule of slavery was to not get close to anyone you love because they were going to get taken from you in the long run "For [Morrison} " killing the children " was the ultimate gesture of being a loving mother." Although one may think that killing a child is one of the cruelest things imaginable, the slave woman was simply saying "I would rather see my child die that be killed." This gesture of love and affection was not inhumane but courageous and very generous.
             Toni Morrison uses many different types of symbols to give the story a deeper meaning. Toni Morrison "uses numbers as a way to communicate". Numbers often evoke ideas more readily then words alone. Upon opening the novel the first thing you read is the number "124" (the address of the house where Sethe and her family live). This number combination is probably the m...