- Read the excerpt from Morrison's chapter entitled "The Site of Memory". Remember why you are reading: You are trying to determine WHY Morrison writes and, in particular, why she wrote Beloved.
- Answer the related questions to the four passages from the handout (copied below).
Guiding Questions for “The Site of Memory”
by Toni Morrison
For these questions, pay attention to the numbered passages in the text that begin and end with brackets.
PASSAGE #1: According to Morrison, why did freed slaves write their narratives? Provide one quotation to support your answer.
PASSAGE #2: How does Morrison view literacy? What is literacy’s relationship to slavery?
PASSAGE #3: In this passage, Morrison quotes the following sentence: “But let us drop a veil over these proceedings too terrible to relate” (110.1). She goes on to explain this phrase. What does this phrase mean?
What does Morrison think her job is since many previous writers “dropped the veil” over their writing?
PASSAGE #4: How does Morrison use imagination as a tool to help her writing?
What is Morrison trying to with the “interior life of people who didn’t write it (which doesn’t mean that they didn’t have it)” (113.6)?
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