A Slave by Any Other Name: Names and Identity in Toni Morrison's Beloved

Abstract

Names and naming play an important part in Toni Morrison's Beloved: A Novel, which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. The story is set in 1873, a decade after the Civil War, but much of it is told through memories and flashbacks of the time when the main characters, Baby Suggs, Paul D, and Halle, were slaves. Morrison's story demonstrates differences in both intent and result when names were issued by slave owners as opposed to names bestowed by Black people themselves.