All But My Life & Beloved

In the stories of blacks who have survived the oppressively dehumanizing institution of slavery, we find many similarities to stories of Jews who survived the equally oppressively dehumanizing institution of Hitler's concentration camps. What is life-affirming about both kinds of stories is that there are those who survived both institutions and were able to retain their life spirit. Even more remarkable, considering the two institutions were quite different in nature, is the fact that survivor's of both often used many of the same internal and external resources to survive with their life, humanity and spirit in tow. Two such stories are revealed to us in Beloved, by Toni Morrison, and All But My Life, by Greta Weissman Klein. In Beloved, the main character is a former slave who has her freedom, Sethe. Sethe is unable to live happily in the present because she is haunted by memories of her murdered child, Beloved, the baby she killed instead of subjecting the child to the tortures of slavery. In All But My Life, a non-fictional account of survival, the main character is Klein herself. The book is a chronicle of how she endured the horrors of losing her entire family and suffered the tortures of Nazi Germany, only to survive and rediscover warmth, love and humanity. Neither character loses her human spirit or will to live, but instead finds new hope and meaning in life, not to mention hidden reservoirs of strength that allow the

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re and inhumanity where living afterwards is concerned, Klein was able to take the one that fosters faith, hope and strength, "We can internalize many messages from Klein's powerful story. We can live in the past, become extremely cynical about humankind and, effectively, lose faith, hope and strength. We can focus solely on the future and hope that positive experiences will be our hallmark for years to come. Or we can take a third path-focus on the future and remember the past. Remember the good and evil. Learn from it. And, throughout it all, maintain faith and hope in humanity" (Latz 2). Klein certainly took the third path. While Klein's path back to life-affirming values was not easy, Sethe's journey is more difficult because her memories haunt her to the point where she is unable to love herself in the present. Unlike the warm family memories that Klein used to help her remember the good in life in the midst of hell, Sethe has only ever known the perspective of being a slave. She was used to being the property of whites, owners who associated being black with all that was evil and animalistic in life. But Sethe is full of love. She is unable to express it because she is overwhelmed by the pain of the past. One m

Category: Literature - A