Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a 1987 classic American novel which speaks words of truth about the social class structure in America. Specifically in pre and post civil war America, and how race has affected the social class structure. And reading the text through the Marxist lens, we’re able to get a deeper understanding of the overall message that Toni Morrison is trying to convey. What she’s telling us is that society needs a scapegoat, and a lowest social class to keep those on the top happy. This most of the time is placed on a single race or religion so that an entire group can be easily oppressed and recognized. Because of this, those on top continuously focus on the bad parts and the negative news of this group to keep the stereotypes of them running. In a way this is a necessary evil in the world and it’s what keeps the social class system from falling apart, someone needs to be on the bottom. And those on the top want to stay on the top so they continuously push the bottom lower down. During the American Civil war and even decades after the slaves and former slaves were the lowest social class, causing obvious discrimination on African Americans that still exist today.

One of the moments in Beloved that demonstrated this, was when Sethe was pictured in the news after she had killed her infant baby. Paul D is looking at the news clipping, and even though he’s convinced that the person pictured isn’t Sethe, he know that anytime an African American is pictured in the news, it’s not a good thing. Toni Morrison tells us this when she writes that, “there was no way in hell a black face could appear in a newspaper if the story was about something anybody wanted to hear...since the face was not there because the person had a healthy baby, or outran a street mob” (183). What this is saying is that the media at the time only focused on the bad parts of African Americans, to re-solidify the negative connotation that people had of the lowest social class. This happened because the media is run by the rich and the white during the time so they’re only furthering their power over the other classes.

Although I’m not the only reader who believes that Toni Morrison is conveying this theme, Heather Duerre Humann online article “Bigotry, Breast Milk, Bric-a-Brac, a Baby, and a Bit in ‘Beloved’: Toni Morrison's Portrayal of Racism and Hegemony” also talks about a theme that is very similar. In her online blog article, she wrote about how, “In her 1987 novel Beloved, Toni Morrison, too, draws from these ethnic notions to further complicate her discussion of racism” and that the “cultural and hegemonic forces that attempt to generalize, essentialism, and stereotype a specific group of individuals in order to maintain an exploitive and oppressive society”. This means that the way our culture is currently, is using slander and the media to stereotype and oppressed an entire group of people in order to create a society that exploits a single class. Toni Morrison argues in her book that this is true and that the problem of the stereotyping and exploitation of African Americans aren’t long gone after the days of the civil war, but are in fact still here. Today we still see news articles like the one Paul D saw, that only focus on the negative side of African Americans, while they turn a blind eye to those same traits in a different social class and race. The “cultural and hegemonic forces” that Humann was talking about comes in all shapes and forms, as seen in Beloved with the newspaper and the laws at the time, are still present today.

So as we can see, Beloved can tell us a lot about the social classes of the time in the book, but also about today's social class. And thanks to the Marxist lens I now have a deeper understand of not only the novel, but of real life, and what Toni Morrison was telling us through her 1987 masterpiece.

If you want to read Heather Duerre Humann's full article go here: Beloved Article

The Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz" Just Wanted a Brain...and Social Equality.

“He thought what they said had merit, and what they felt was serious. Deferring to his slaves' opinions did not deprive him of authority or power. It was schoolteacher who taught them otherwise. A truth that waved like a scarecrow in rye: they were only Sweet Home men at Sweet Home. One step off that ground and they were trespassers among the human race” (147).

Scarecrow in a field of crops, similar to the one described in the quote above from Beloved

When someone reads a text through the Marxist lens, they are observing how the social classes of the book interact and how their social classes affect one another. By doing this, the reader is able to see which social class has power over the rest, and how this changes interactions between characters from different social classes.

One of the moments in Beloved where this is shown clearly is when Paul D began to look back on his time at Sweet Home. Paul D quickly realized that the world of Sweet Home and the rest of Southern America at the time were two very different places. With the realization that even though Mr. and Mrs. Garner treated them like men, “they were only Sweet Home men at Sweet Home”. Toni Morrison used diction and the use of similes in this quote to convey Paul D’s realization of just how differently they were treated at Sweet Home, than anywhere else.

Sweet Home plantation in Alabama, similar to the plantation in Beloved

If we read this passage through the Marxist lens, we can see how Paul D’s experiences at Sweet Home has changed his views of how Social Classes affect people. It’s important to note that this scene takes place during the times of slavery in Southern America. This resulted in social classes to be very impacted by your ethnicity, with the Caucasians usually on the top and the African Americans on the bottom. This was because at the time African Americans were seen by many as subhumans, or as Paul D put it, “trespassers among the human race”. Which led to strong discrimination and thus they suffered financially even after slavery was abolished.

We can also see in this quote that Toni Morrison uses diction and smart word choice to help convey the point that at the time slaves were the lowest social class. The main part of the quote where diction is used is the final sentence in which Toni Morrison writes, “one step off that ground and they were trespassers among the human race”. She chooses the word “trespassers” because earlier we can see that plantations tend to be societies of its own, with their own ideals and treatment of slaves. In the case of Sweet Home, Mr and Mrs. Garner treat them with respect but if they trespass outside of Sweet Home they’re no longer welcome, nor treated with respect. Not only that but we can also see how the word choice of “human race” conveys the point that Toni Morrison was trying to show us. I believe that she chose the word “race” because during this time the African American race was looked down upon almost like non humans, which is shown here because Toni Morrison talks about how African Americans are “trespassers among the human race”, in other words, only unwelcomed guests of the human race, and not a part of the human race, but something worse.

We can also see that Toni Morrison uses similes to convey her point throughout the book. We can see this when she writes about how African Americans have no power compared to those higher up in the social chain then them, which is, “a truth that waved like a scarecrow in rye”. I believe that Toni Morrison chose the simile of a scarecrow in the rye because Sweet Home was often described in the book as a beautiful place full of fields. However, the truth of just how oppressed the slaves who lived on the land were still apparent, and casted a shadow over the fields, like a scarecrow. Also, African Americans were compared to crows many times during that era, mainly because of the Jim Crow laws that made African Americans second class citizens. Another example of this is in Dumbo with the crows who are portrayed in a very racist way. So we can see that Toni Morrison chose the Scarecrow because it perfectly represented the obvious oppression of the African Americans despite the beauty and the fairness they experienced sometimes at Sweet Home.

In conclusion, we can see how if we read through Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved through the Marxist lens we get to see how social classes affect everyone, especially the African Americans in early America. We can see this in the passage shown above, and in many other places throughout the book. Thanks to reading through the Marxist lens I now have a deeper understanding of the social classes of that time.

To learn more about the Jim Crow laws click on this link: Jim Crow laws