Beloved

In the IB-program, you are suppose to do something callen an Oral Commentary, one for every language you're taking. For me, that is Swedish and English. The concept is: the student recieve an extract from a book you have read during the year (you know which books). In English, the extracts are from two different book, and for me it was between the novel Beloved and the play A Streetcar Named Desire. You pick randomly between four envelopes and in it you have your extract. Then, you have tweny minutes for analysing and planning, then you will talk about, "comment" on it, for a duration between 10-15 minutes. The extract I got was from Beloved.

Beloved is, in my opinion, one of the greatest novels written in modern time. It is by Toni Morrison, who was awarded with the Nobel Prize in literature. It is set in America, and focusing on former slaves. It is set in two different timelines, or planes. It is a very hard novel, everyone hates it at first but then you often transform that hatred to love. Morrison explores themes such as memories, the past, love and slavery and all of them arebeautifully braided into each other.

Last week, I had my commentary. You have probably already figured out which novel I got (Beloved of course). Confused ramble during a ten minutes span about symbolism, themes and characters are hopefully enough to get a good grade.