With reference to the definition of traditional historicism that Bennett and Royle outline in chapter 14, to what extent is this approach appropriate for interpreting Morrison's novel?.

             Toni Morrison's "Beloved" is an inspired story by the African American Slave Margaret Garner who, for a short time, escaped slavery in 1856. The important word here should be the word "inspired ".

             "Morrison had come across a nineteenth-century magazine clipping which became the inspiration for 'Beloved'. According to the article, a young runaway slave woman named Margaret Gamer was tracked by her owner to Cincinnati, where she had sought refuge with her freed mother-in-law. Facing imminent capture, Garner attempted to kill her four children, and in one case succeeded. All of the accounts of the tragedy remarked on the woman's tranquility, Morrison explained in various interviews, but Garner was simply insisting that her children must not be forced to live as she had lived-as a slave."(Marren).

             Bennett and Royle state that reading with the criticism of traditional historicism in mind, we are assisted in understanding the time in which literary works are set and that these texts provide 'imaginative representations of historical moments, events or periods' (Bennett and Royle 117), which is exactly the case with Morrison and Beloved. As stated, Morrison was inspired by past histories of black slaves and her text reflects those events and that time period. Sethe's scars on her back have become a living reminder of her past in her imagination. The whippings she was given in Sweet Home have produced marks on her back forming dead scars in the shape of a tree. She states, "I got a tree on my back"(Chapter One) and tells Paul D that a "Whitegirl.That's what she called it."" I believe this to be an important symbol and reference to time and history as trees are a symbol of age and timelessness. In this chapter the narration alternates and shifts between time in Cincinnati and Sweet Home.