Toni Morrison’s Beloved has been a mainstay on the American Library Association’s list of the “Top Ten Most Challenged Books” since its publication in 1987. Censorists cite graphic depictions of violent and sexual acts as ground for removal from schools, and the novel was dubbed “moral sewage” on the Virginia State Senate floor. The encounter led to the Beloved bill giving parents the right to waive the reading requirement for students for books with sexually explicit content.
Set in Ohio after the American Civil War, Morrison’s Beloved is based on the true story of Margaret Garner, an enslaved African-American woman who killed her child to spare them a life of slavery. While the presence of violence and sexually explicit material in the work is not up for debate, its inclusion in school curricula most certainly is. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel’s unflinching look at uncomfortable and shocking subject matter make it an essential component for an understanding of the literary tradition of antebellum slavery, while standing as a lyrical exploration of family, trauma, and the infidelity of memory.
In the novel, after our protagonist Sethe first arrived at 124 Bluestone Road, Stamp Paid collected two pails of freshly picked blackberries. The blackberries were baked into pies and those pies led to a communal feast for 90 people - a feast that would act as an inflection point in the book.This candle blends the scents of tart blackberry, hints of lemon zest, and basenotes of flaky pie crust
12oz | 70 hours