Interview With Toni Morrison :: essays papers

Im provoke in the way in which the past affects the present and I phone that if we understand a good deal to a greater extent about history, we mechanically understand a great more about contemporary life. Also, theres more of the past for imaginative purposes than there is of the future. Q. Beloved is dedicated to the 60 one thousand million who died as a result of striverry. A staggering number -- is this proved historically? A. Some historians told me 200 million died. The smallest number I got from anybody was 60 million. There were travel accounts of people who were in the Congo -- thats a capacious river -- saying, We could not get the boat through the river, it was choked with bodies. Thats like a logjam. A lot of people died. Half of them died in those ships. Slave flock was like cocaine is now -- even though it was against the law, that didnt stop anybody. speculate getting $1,000 for a human being. Thats a lot of money. There ar fortunes in this country th at were made that way. I thought this has got to be the least(prenominal) read of all the books Id written because it is about something that the characters dont fatality to remember, I dont want to remember, black people dont want to remember, white people dont want to remember. I mean, its national amnesia. Q. You gave new insight into the day-to-day struggle of slaves. A. I was arduous to make it a personal experience. The book was not about the installation -- Slavery with a capital 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 t alks about his daily life and says, Put the bit on Jenny today. He says that about 19 times in six months -- and he was presumably an enlightened slave owner.