"Beloved," by Toni Morrison, contains descriptive and graphic scenes, such as a brutal rape scene, tragic infanticide, and bestiality. Various colleges and high schools have placed "Beloved" on the required reading list for young students forcing them to be exposed to this ill-mannered writing. Many argue that "Beloved" is one of the greatest works of literature from the past 25 years, while others argue that it should be removed from the reading lists and replaced with a more valuable piece of literature such as Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Frederick Douglass. These other authors are classical writers who have established a name for themselves and have developed credibility. Morrison was not an ex-slave nor did she grow up in a family of ex-slaves, giving her no credibility in the factual information; she wrote this novel as a ghost story, which further withdrew from the sense of realism in the story. "Beloved" should be removed from all required reading lists because there is a multitude of better selections and authors students can be introduced to that are more credible and culturally valuable than "Beloved.".
Toni Morrison was born in Lorain, Ohio into a working class family of six. She graduated from Cornell and Howard University with a bachelors in English. Morrison did not experience any of the things that she wrote about in "Beloved" regarding slavery or life post slavery. Her background could not have prompted her to write such a story, but the fact that she is an African American woman prompted her instead. If a white male had written the novel, there is a definite probability that it would have flopped. The fact that she never experienced any of the instances in the novel detracted from the overall credibility of the story, forcing the reader to view it as merely fiction rather than historical fiction. Other novels about slavery, such as "The Narrative of Frederick Douglass," contain all factual information about the life of a slave and how cruel everything was.
