Morrison drew on a Cincinnati murder case arising from a woman's sacrifice of her children to keep them out of the grasp of slave catchers. Because the crimes at the heart of the novel repulse some readers, a small vocal coterie of critics has lambasted Morrison's work as soap opera, a "blackface holocaust novel," and a revamped Heart of Darkness. In rebuttal, she has insisted, "It's not my job to make black peoples' values acceptable to society as a whole." Rather, Morrison chooses to marvel that slaves who were brutalized beyond endurance were able to function as well as they did, especially after emancipation, when their expectations were high but their social station reflected little change from plantation days. Beloved, which is classified as historical fiction, gothic horror story, and bildungsroman (coming-of-age novel), demonstrates Toni Morrison's skill in penetrating the unconstrained, unapologetic psyches of numerous characters who shoulder the horrific burden of slavery's hidden sins.
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