Commodification of Body and Emancipation of Skin in Toni Morrison’s Beloved : A Comparative and Contrasting Analytic Discourse

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ABSTRACT Toni Morrison’s work of fiction Beloved is not only a story of emancipation from slavery but also a critical discourse of philosophy. This article, with the help of textual analysis, will make an attempt to demonstrate the philosophical gap that exists between using one’s body as commodity and liberating one’s skin (color/soul/self) from that body. The gap is the death, if not a physical one then death of the self, of one’s soul. “We die. That may be the meaning of our lives” (Morrison 1994) is an extension of Toni Morrison’s realization of perceiving physical life through an African American lens. Considering the color line political discourse as a stimulating factor and the history of slavery as background force, this article will make an attempt to add some philosophical values associated in the writings of Toni Morrison. At the same time, this article will try to figure out the critical discourse of mother-daughter relationships between Baby Suggs and Sethe and Sethe and Beloved to understand the philosophical meaning of life with the help of some scholarly criticisms and references from the text.