Beloved: A Nickel a Month

Brandon Mikuriya

AP Lang, Period 5

April 1, 2013

Beloved: Rhetorical Analysis III

            Despite living in a liberated America, relics of slavery continued to haunt Denver and her family.  To educate the black community, “for a nickel a month, Lady Jones did what whitepeople thought unnecessary if not illegal: crowded her little parlor with colored children who had time for and interest in book learning” (120).  The “nickel a month” bears a president who held slaves—Thomas Jefferson.  In addition, Jefferson cemented the Democratic-Republicans, champions of agrarian society and Southern slaveholders, as the dominant force in the political landscape.  By utilizing a coin associated with a proslavery president, Morrison suggests that newly emancipated slaves could still not escape the haunting memories slavery—even if they were born free.  Morrison eliminates the space between the adjective “white” and the noun “people” in order to create the neologism “whitepeople.”  The word “people” should be used as a collective term that encompasses every race, but here, Morrison identifies whites as a different species; in the same manner, blacks could be considered “blackpeople.”  Reclassifying individuals ensures that they remain separate and incompatible with each other.  Finally, the “book learning” provided by Lady Jones is achieved through the use of a bible, which reveals African Americans’ dependence upon Christianity.  While enslaved, blacks attempted to add purpose to their painful lives through Christianity’s message of divine salvation for the poor.  Through this section, Morrison reveals that practices created on plantations followed their owners North.