Boundaries of Freedom

Toni Morris, with the help of her son, Slade Morrison, once again writes a book that encourages people to think on a deeper level.  Unlike the majority of her writings, this is a children’s book that challenges the definition of social boundaries adults set for children.  In The Big Box, parents, teachers, and other adults determine the boundaries of personal freedom for three irrepressible children “who just can’t handle their freedom.”  Because these children don’t fit into the expectations that the adults have for how children should behave and act, the adults have created a world inside a box where the kids are to live.  The adults have supplied everything they think children would want:  toys, games, gifts, and treats.  In this artificial world, the children are expected to live carefree and happily.  What the adults don’t take into consideration is that all the children desire is to be accepted for who they are and to have freedom.    

     The Big Box’s story is easy to read due to its poetic rhyme and repetition and its gentle flow from page to page.  Though the story is told with a child’s perspective and addresses the struggles I’m sure that children go through when trying to live in an adult world, I feel like the message of the book is perhaps too deep for smaller children to grasp.  This book seems more fitting for teenagers and adults.    

     When reading The Big Box, I started making connections to Morrison’s book, Beloved.   In Beloved, several of the main characters came from a plantation named Sweet Home where they served as slaves.  Though Sweet Home could be considered a place of comfort and privilege for slaves, it was nonetheless a place where individuals were denied their freedom to come and go and live the life they desired.  This is directly connected to the position that the children in The Big Box found themselves.  Though they were given what would seem to be everything they could want, they did not have their freedom.  Both of these books represent how important and instrumental freedom is for all. 

     As Schoolteacher in Beloved saw the slaves as subjects of experimentation and specimens that should be controlled, the parents in The Big Box believed that the children needed to be “cured” and until one could be found, they would control the children’s environment.  In both instances, a group condemned and controlled others because the segregated group didn’t fit the expectations and the controlling group ultimately decided their fate and thereby took away their freedom. 

     Both of these stories are about oppression of minority groups: in this case blacks and children.  In both literary works, the oppressed groups expressed a strong desire to be free.  Both groups compared their lack of freedom to the freedom animals naturally have in our world.  It is indeed difficult to understand and justify not being able to live your life, to express who you are, and to be an individual, when others, whether because they are white or because they are adults, are allowed not only make decisions for their own lives, but also determine the boundaries of personal freedom for others. 

A Different View

“They will always be about the same thing – you know – about the whole world of black people in this country.” (137)  This was a statement Toni Morrison said in an interview with Judith Wilson in 1981.  Toni Morrison is all about culture and family.  She researches a lot before writing her stories.  She writes fiction, but uses her research to incorporate what it was really like in the time period she is writing.  Toni Morrison shares African-American culture with the world through her novels.  Her books show the real cultural background of African-American’s.

Secondary Sources - Excerpt

“The book clearly reveals the disparate and extremely complex ways Afro-Americanshave thought about the quality of their lives; it also reveals what many of them have decided to do about it individually and collectively. In creating the Seven Days, Morrison reaches into the historical black community and its contemporary equivalent to reveal a dissonance which has always characterized the Afro- American world. This dissonance, tension, or Yin-Yang polarity unfolds principally through the relationship between Guitar Bains, spokesperson for the Seven Days, and his friend Milkman Dead, the middle-class protagonist of Solomon. Their socioeconomic differences,consequential socializations, and their divergent experiences are a microcosm for thetwo most distinguishable Afro-American ideological streams and their respective historical advocates.” –page 150

“Guitar and Milkman are also at opposite ends of the class/race spectrum. Guitar belongs to the wider black community, and as his movements throughout the community (from Feather's pool room to Tommy's barbershop to Mary's bar) illustrate, he has accumulated his knowledge of the world and self through conscious thought and worldly experiences. Guitar is street; Milkman is house. Guitar, moreover, has learned about the tragedy of black life in America from the personal tragedy of his father's murder and from those men who stand in opposition to what Milkman's father, Macon Dead, represents. In short, Guitar joins the Seven Days because of his experiences and his life, as if Morrison were suggesting that it takes just such experiences and tragedies for black men to embrace a revolutionary praxis. Milkman, on the other hand, ends up rejecting his backgroundand the world his father has created for him by setting out to rediscover his racial past-a noble quest but one which is only individually rewarding.”

–page 155

Trust Them to Figure it Out

This is an article published in the Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies and written by Maria Ropero. The main focus of the article is the viewpoint of Toni Morrison on the subject of children’s literature. Many of the children’s books that Toni Morrison wrote with her son Slade Morrison are discussed while adding comments from an interview with Toni Morrison. This article unlocks the answers to many questions about the style of Toni Morrison’s children literature. Morrison claims, “when children simply comply with norms and expectations, they don’t have their own lives and their own experiences” (Ropero 47).  Morrison believes that children have to be subjected to real life conditions to fully understand the capability of children to deal with the choices that life presents. Morrison does not undermine the authority of the parents or the education system, but believes that the central goal of education should be to encourage children to think and decide for themselves (Ropero 47). According to Morrison, we should “trust the children to figure it out and give them the opportunity to figure it out” (Ropero 48). Ropero argues in the article with Morrison’s beliefs that society has cheated children and not allowed them to make crucial decisions and observations that will help them to develop into capable adults. This article emphasizes the need to have children make their own decisions and for parents to stop protecting children from all of life’s disappointing situations. Children need to be able to face difficult situations and make their own choices of how those situations will affect their own life.

This article is helpful in understanding Toni Morrison’s beliefs and expectations ofchildren when she co-wrote her series of children’s books. In many of the children’s books, children are subjected to life’s harsh realities (oppression, mean people, prejudism, etc.). The children are subjected to situations that many parents try to shield their children from. In The Book of Mean People, a young child tells of all of the mean people in his life. These people include his friends, teachers, and family members. The child tells of these people yelling and making mean faces at him especially. His remarks about all of the mean people in his life make readers feel sorry for him, but, by the end of the book, the child has made the decision that he is not going to let all of the negativity in his life to turn him into a negative person. He triumphs over the oppression and adversity in his life and makes the choice to be happy and smile through the difficult moments that life may bring. This text is a perfect example of the beliefs of Toni Morrison presented in the article. This child has faced some difficult situations in his life and has made his own choice to be happy; he has made this decision without the help of his parents or influence from other adults.

Ropero, Maria L. "Trust Them to Figure It Out." Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies. 30.2 (2008): 43-57. Web. 27 Apr. 2013