Toni Morrison’s Beloved underlines the importance of how names are an essential part of one’s identity. They disconnect slaves from their heritage and families while also depriving them of their cultural background. Slave owners used formulaic names to suppress slaves and ex-slaves then used the naming process to assert their newfound independence. The slaves at Sweet Home perceived themselves as inferior the same way their slave owners, Schoolteacher and Mr. Garner viewed them. Names throughout Beloved take on magical properties that alter reality due to their transformative power. This not only influences a person’s identity as well as their connection to the past, but the world they inhabit. The various names Morrison uses address the power
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The ironic misnomer known as Sweet Home shows this. Paul D ruefully remarks “[i]t wasn’t sweet and it sure wasn’t home” (Morrison 16) emphasizing the place was not a home because it did not value their humanity but their labor. The contorted nomenclature continues with Mr. Garner’s emphasis on calling his slave men, “[y’] all got boys … my niggers is men every one of em” (Morrison 12). Other slave owners referred to their slaves as boys which dehumanized and infantilized them Mr. Garner uses the term men reminding them they are human beings and not just property. The term men as a status of one’s significance is shown once more upon Paul D’s reflection of the guards in Alfred, Georgia “men who knew their manhood lay in their guns …‘men’ who made even vixen laugh could, if you let them, stop you from hearing doves or loving moonlight” (Morrison 191). The guards’ consciousness of their manhood or lack thereof causes them to assert it against the slaves by internalizing their inferiority. The internalized inferiority that the slaves feel is shown when Paul D reminisces about life at Sweet Home asking “[i]s this where the manhood lay? In the naming done by a whiteman who was supposed to know?” (Morrison 147). The inner turmoil Paul D faces shows his rejection and distrusts for the language that is being used to define him and those who have the power to define
The ironic misnomer known as Sweet Home shows this. Paul D ruefully remarks “[i]t wasn’t sweet and it sure wasn’t home” (Morrison 16) emphasizing the place was not a home because it did not value their humanity but their labor. The contorted nomenclature continues with Mr. Garner’s emphasis on calling his slave men, “[y’] all got boys … my niggers is men every one of em” (Morrison 12). Other slave owners referred to their slaves as boys which dehumanized and infantilized them Mr. Garner uses the term men reminding them they are human beings and not just property. The term men as a status of one’s significance is shown once more upon Paul D’s reflection of the guards in Alfred, Georgia “men who knew their manhood lay in their guns …‘men’ who made even vixen laugh could, if you let them, stop you from hearing doves or loving moonlight” (Morrison 191). The guards’ consciousness of their manhood or lack thereof causes them to assert it against the slaves by internalizing their inferiority. The internalized inferiority that the slaves feel is shown when Paul D reminisces about life at Sweet Home asking “[i]s this where the manhood lay? In the naming done by a whiteman who was supposed to know?” (Morrison 147). The inner turmoil Paul D faces shows his rejection and distrusts for the language that is being used to define him and those who have the power to define