A mother chooses to slice her daughter’s throat with a chainsaw rather than to allow her to suffer a life of slavery in the shocking conclusion of Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved. In his essay entitled “Sethe’s Choice”, James Phelan highlights the way Morrison offers several ethical viewpoints on this conclusion instead of a single one, which he feels provides an unusual yet rewarding literary experience. This is summed up in his last paragraph, where he says “by [Morrison] limiting her guidance, […] [readers] have a more difficult and demanding, but also richer, reading experience” (107). To Phelan, this experience is possible because there is a “typical relation between implied author and audience in ethically complex texts” (93), and he seeks to explore this relation between Morrison and her audience. The author’s part in this relationship is first explained in general by referring to the work of people such as Adam Zachary Newton, followed by a detailed analysis of Morrison’s treatment of her text. In contrast, less discussion has been devoted to the reader’s side of the relationship and Phelan hurriedly sums it up in the following passage:

Authors give, among other things, guidance through ethical complexity […]. Audiences give that interest and attention [to authors] and expect to receive in return authorial guidance. […] Audiences who place their own interests (ideologies, politics, ethics) at the center of their reading risk turning reading into a repetitious activity that misses the ways in which authors can extend their vision of human possibility and experience. (97)

In this essay, I shall illustrate how Phelan demonstrates a narrow mindedness in describing readers as being passive, and his failure to consider more active readers in his discussion of Beloved.

The consistent use of the term ‘guidance’ in the essay has significance and its meaning warrants a closer look. In the essay, we read that authors provide “guidance through ethical complexity” and audiences “expect to receive in return authorial guidance” (97). This term is also used throughout the essay to describe the manner in which Morrison and other authors provide ethical views to readers. Although the term guidance implies an approach akin to a gentle nudge in influencing readers as compared to stronger terms such as ‘manipulate’ and ‘lead’, it has strong connotations of a teacher, or more knowledgeable person, speaking down to a student, or more ignorant person. A hierarchical relation between authors and audiences is implicit in the essay. This brings forward an image of readers who possess a large degree of passiveness in reading as they expect to obtain knowledge from authors.

This description of passive readers is the only type in Phelan’s discourse world. In the last paragraph, Phelan writes that “by guiding us less, Morrison gives us more” (107). The term ‘us’ is employed throughout the essay, and often follows the word ‘guiding’. By the use of this word, Phelan groups all readers collectively and assumes that they possess a passive attitude towards reading.

         Phelan implicitly claims that readers possess purely one extreme style of reading – either passive or active – rather than both styles along a continuum. At one extreme, he speaks of “audiences who place their own interests (ideologies, politics, ethics) at the center of their reading” (97) which refers to active readers with their own views while on the other extreme are implied passive readers who allow “authors [to] extend their vision of human possibility and experience” (97). Unfortunately, pure passiveness and activeness in reading do not exist, but stand at both ends of a spectrum whereby readers will lie in between. If passive readers were to benefit from being brainwashed by authors’ teachings, this would mean that all authors have honourable motives and provide enriching content in their texts. This would demand unreasonably high moral standards from all authors, which does not exist in reality. And in describing active readers, Phelan claims that these readers will block out all knowledge inconsistent with what present information and views they have by saying that “their reading risk turning reading into a repetitious activity” (97). Overwhelming authors’ opinions with personal viewpoints only exists in purely active readers, which hardly mirrors actual reading practices. In failing to realise that such extreme reading styles are highly improbable, Phelan demonstrates his lack of recognition for readers along the continuum.

Despite putting active reading in a bad light, Phelan mentions that a multiplicity of interpretations of Beloved exists (107), but contradictorily, these interpretations could only have been inspired through active reading. This shows that readers may not be led as strongly Phelan advocates. In his essay, he constantly uses phrases such as “Morrison is guiding us toward [accepting an ethical viewpoint]” (103) and that we receive “guidance through ethical complexity” (97). This implies that if readers were passive, they would allow themselves to be led by Morrison to see each ethical viewpoint one by one. Interestingly, Phelan lists a number of academic writers in his endnotes and elaborates on how Beloved has brought to them the attention of a diverse amount of topics such as African culture, slavery and motherhood (107) but despite this, “no one, to [Phelan’s] knowledge, has directly addressed the ethics of Sethe’s choice” (107). The writers’ discussions of these diverse topics, together with the conspicuous lack of regard towards ethical aspects of Beloved shows that readers are able to take an active stance in reading as opposed to a passive one.

     Phelan acknowledges that there is a relationship between author and audience, but glosses over the role of the latter. His acknowledgement and endorsement of only one type of readers causes a lack of depth in his essay. This is compounded by his apparent awareness of other types of readers yet refusal to give them due credit in his discussion. He might have presented a more convincing case if he had expanded on the various types of readers without bias, which is what John Guillory does in “The Ethical Practice of Modernity: The Example of Reading” in making a distinction between professional (active) and lay (passive) reading. Phelan would do better in following Guillory’s treatment of readers as this would have provided more balance in his discussion.

Works cited

Guillory, John. "The Ethical Practice of Modernity: The Example of Reading." The Turn to       Ethics. Eds. Marjorie Garber, Beatrice Hanssen, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz. New York:Routledge, 2000. 29-46.

Phelan, James. "Sethe's Choice: Beloved and the Ethics of Reading." Mapping the ethical turn: a reader in ethics, culture, and literary theory. Ed. Todd F. Davis and Kenneth Womack. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 2001. 93-109.