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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts TONI MORRISON's BELOVED Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies TONI MORRISON'S BELOVED: THE NOVEL AND THE FILM (B.A. Major Thesis) Anna Fischerová Supervisor: PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. Brno, April 2006 Declaration I hereby declare that I have worked on this B.A. Thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. 28th April 2006 in Brno: 2 Acknowledgement I would like to express many thanks to my supervisor, PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr., for his helpful advice and time that he devoted to supervising my thesis. 3 Contents: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………. 5 1. THE BOOK – CONTEXT………………………………………….………... 7 1.1. MARGARET GARNER………………………………..……………... 7 1.2. TONI MORRISON’S BELOVED…………………………….………. 9 1.3. THE GARNERS: SETHE AND MARGARET……………………….. 11 2. THE FILM – CONTEXT………………………………………..…………... 14 2.1. BLACK FILMMAKING IN CONTEXT………………………….... 14 2.2. BELOVED AND ITS WAY TO THE SCREEN…………………….. 16 3. FILM AND LITERATURE: THE MEDIA COMPARED………………… 19 4. BELOVED : FILM AND BOOK……………………………………………... 24 4.1. THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE…………………………………. 24 4.2. SUPERNATURAL AND HORROR ELEMENTS…………………. 27 4.3. THE CHARACTERS………………………………………………... 33 4.4. OMISSIONS AND ALTERATIONS……………………………….. 38 4.5. CRITICS, AUDIENCES, THE RECEPTION OF THE MOVIE…… 42 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………….. 45 WORKS CITED LIST………………………………………………………….. 47 4 Introduction All of us probably know the feeling when we see a film version of a book that we have read and enjoyed. We have certain expectations and feel somehow protective of the book. If the film does the book justice, we are pleased (sometimes a film can even outshine a book). If, however, our expectations are too high or the film fails to match the virtues of the book, we are disappointed and, if the book is one of our favorites, even angry. It is therefore interesting to compare a film with its book source and explore the reasons of its possible success or failure. As the topic of my thesis, I chose Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved and its film counterpart for several reasons. Firstly, Beloved is one of my favorite books and I was curious about the film. When I first saw the movie, I felt puzzled, and did not know what to think. To be honest, I did not like it. However, I gradually realized that the more I thought about it the more I liked it. I came to understand the goals of the film, the good intentions and devotion with which the film was made and I realized that it is not a movie to make a quick judgment about. It is easy to criticize but putting forth the effort to give the film a chance can be rewarding. Secondly, I thought it a great challenge to make a film based on such a complicated book as Beloved certainly is and wanted to explore more about the process of making such a movie. Thirdly, I found it attractive and challenging to make some sense from a movie that received such conflicting reviews. My aim is not to show and prove that either the book or the film is better than the other. I want to explore the possibilities and limits of both the book and the film in regards to their media. I also intend to point out the similarities and differences and their effects on the the story’s overall impression and to what extent the message stays the same. It is also interesting to consider the amount of the film’s dependency on the book and to what degree it can be regarded as an individual and independent work of art, and how much we depend on 5 the knowledge from the book. I also want to situate both the film and the book into their respective contexts of their origins, ties, and roles in their own media and genres. In the first chapter, I will introduce the book in context of its historical background. Although Toni Morrison did not write a historical fiction about Margaret Garner’s life, she was well-acquainted with the story and used it as a background to build her own story on. The fact that the book is based on a true story renders it with gravity. In the second chapter, I will try to do the same with the film. Firstly, I want to put it into context of the developments in Black American filmmaking. Although Beloved is not entirely a black-made film and was made by a white Hollywood director, it is remarkable for maintaining the distinctiveness of the source. The black experience that is conveyed in the book is not downplayed or made more accessible to the mainstream audiences in the film. Beloved can therefore be regarded as one of the latest and more successful achievements in the struggle of African Americans for more fair and real depiction on screen that has lasted th for the most part of the 20 century. Secondly, I will focus on the origins of the film itself. The third chapter called “Film and Literature: the Media Compared” is devoted to a more theoretical background and is designed to explore and compare the two media. I will consider the means of expression of the two media and comment on the possibilities and limits of a book and its film adaptation. In the final chapter, I will discuss the film itself and compare it to the book. The main concerns will be the narrative structure, supernatural and horror elements, the veridicality of the screen portrayal of the characters, the necessity and justification of some alterations and omissions in the script, and the reception of the movie by critics and audiences alike. My intention is thus to present both the book and the film both in a wider context, so that their aims and choices are clear, as well as in their own terms. 6 1. The Book – context 1.1. Margaret Garner Toni Morrison drew her inspiration and based the narrative of her Pulitzer Prize- winning novel on a true story about Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave from Kentucky, who killed her daughter rather than to allow herself and her children to be taken back to slavery. The whole affair stirred emotions 150 years ago and has had the power of doing so even much 1 later, as Morrison’s book and several other publications prove . The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote right after the tragedy that the whole affair had “a tinge of fearful, although romantic interest”. It also observed that “the Abolitionists regard the parents of the murdered child as a hero and heroine, teeming with lofty and holy emotions, who, Virginiuslike would rather imbue their hands in the blood of their offspring than allow them to wear the shackles 2 of slavery, while others look upon them as brutal and unnatural.” In January 1856, a group of seventeen slaves belonging to different farmers in Kentucky decided to escape together. They used sleds and horses of one of their masters and fled to Convington, Kentucky. The Ohio River was frozen and they could cross it on foot. When they reached Ohio near Wester Row, it was already daylight and they decided to split up so as not to attract attention. Margaret, her husband Robert, their four children, and Robert’s parents went to find Mr. Kite, a former slave from a neighboring farm who was bought out of slavery by his father. The remaining nine fugitives followed a different route and made it safely to Canada. Kite went to Levi Coffin, a white Underground Railroad agent, to negotiate a hiding place and arrange the escape for the fugitives, but they were already 1 The first one who recorded this tragic story was Levi Coffin, a devoted abolitionist and President of the Underground Railroad, who wrote about the case of Margaret Garner in his Reminiscences (1876). More recent and profound is Steven Weisenburger’s Modern Medea: a Family Story of Slavery and Child-Murder 2from the Old South (1998) “Stampede of Slaves: a Tale of Horror.” the Cincinnati Enquirer 29 Jan. 1856 <http://www.enquirer.com/editions/1998/10/02/loc_w_slave02.html> 7 discovered and surrounded in Kite’s house by their slave masters. Barred in the house, they were determined to fight and die for their freedom rather than to go back to slavery again. Robert fired on the officials but was eventually overpowered. Margaret, determined to save her family from slavery at any cost, cut her little girl’s throat with a knife and attempted to do likewise with her remaining three children. Before she could do this and kill herself at the end, she was stopped by the officials. The Garners were arrested and put in jail. The trial full of sensation and emotions on the both sides lasted two weeks. A lawyer assigned to the Garners argued that because Margaret had been brought into a free state to work years earlier, she was, according to a law, which liberated slaves who were brought into a free state with consent of their masters, legally free. Her four children born after that should follow the condition of their mother and should have been free as well. This point was vital, because she had a chance of being judged as human, not as property. Nevertheless, no appeals and pleadings could divert the Garners from being judged as property and as such they were returned to slavery and sold down the river. The tragic fate of Margaret Garner was not over and while on board of a ship heading south, with her youngest daughter in her arms, she fell (probably intentionally) overboard in an accident. Margaret was saved but her baby was drowned and she only regretted not 3 drowning herself as well.
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