Why I Chose This Lens

I chose the biographical / historical lens because history is one of the most interesting things to me. I also love to research biographies and then link the way that the author’s life has affected his or her writing. My life and experiences definitely do affect my writing, so I’m interested in analyzing how this comes into play with other authors. Specifically in this case, the author has written a book in a time period completely different from the one that she actually lived in. So, not only will her life affect her story, but history will also play a very important part. What she has written about is probably partly based on experience, and partly based on history. When reading this book, I will need to make sure that I have researched the author’s life in order to look out for any events in the book that might possibly mirror her life. I also will probably have to have basic knowledge about the settings in the time period described, because different places in the U.S. had vastly differentiating views regarding slavery in the mid to late 1800’s. Also, this book was inspired by a woman named Margaret Garner, so it’s important that I know how and why Morrison was inspired by her and thought that her story was important enough to share.