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CU Book Club: Home

A joint effort book discussion group held every semester by The Office of Student Advocacy & Prevention Awareness and Jennings Library.

Join us on google meet!

This book group was started to provide the Caldwell University community a place to discuss great reads relevant to current events and issues.  The group is a partnership between The Office of Student Advocacy and Prevention Awareness and Jennings Library and is open to students, faculty and staff. 

Join us on January 20 at 12 noon on google meet to discuss Beloved meet.google.com/grp-bmxu-yvg

To read Beloved the ebook online, click the below "eBook - Toni Morrison essential novels" link, scroll down to 'table of contents', then click "Beloved".

For more information, contact Adbul Staten astaten@caldwell.edu or Victoria Swanson viswanson@caldwell.edu.

What We're Reading Now

What We're Reading NEXT

Coming in the Spring 2021 semester...Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Discussion Questions

1. Consider the extent to which slavery dehumanizes individuals by stripping them of their identity, destroying their ability to conceive of the self. Consider, especially, Paul and how he can't determine whether screams he hears are his or someone else's. How do the other characters reflect self-alienation?

2. Discuss the different roles of the community in betraying and protecting the house at 124. What larger issue might Morrison be suggesting here about community.

3. What does Beloved's appearance represent? What about her behavior? Why does she finally disappear—what drives her departure? And why is the book's title named for her?

4. Talk about the choice Sethe made regarding her children when schoolteacher arrives to take them all back to Sweet Home. Can her actions be justified—are her actions rational or irrational?

5. What does the narrator mean by the warning at the end: this is not a story to pass on." Is he right...or not.

from LitLovers

Suggested Further Readings & Videos