• Quest for An Authentic Existence in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: A Feminine Response to Slavery

Dr. Gurdev Singh

Abstract: Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1988) grows out of the historical context of American slavery and reconstruction. It embodies a response to the Fugitive Slave Law to which Sethe, the chief female protagonist of the novel, falls a prey in 1855. The Fugitive slaves were those who had run away from slave masters in the south and found haven in the northern and border states. The Fugitive Slave Law, enacted by the Congress, empowered the slave masters to reclaim their property i.e. the runaways. Sethe, a runaway slave, who is the chief female protagonist in Beloved slits her baby’s throat rather than see her sold as a slave when her slave master comes to reclaim her and her children. Sethe is the fictional representation of Margaret Garner, who in 1851, had escaped with her children from her master in Kentucky to Ohio. When she and her children were about to be reclaimed by the slave master, she tried to kill her children rather than return them to a life of slavery. She succeeded in killing one of the children and was imprisoned for infanticide.\r\n