Beloved is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Toni Morrison and published in 1987. The story follows Sethe as she attempts to make peace with her present (for her, America post-Civil War ) and her past as a former slave and the atrocities she suffered at the hands of the "benevolent" Gardner family. The information provided to readers from different perspectives, multiple characters, and various time periods allows its audience to piece together the history of the family, their lives, as well as providing insight into slavery and the aftermath as a whole. The characters feel like they are discovering more and more as the novel progresses through time, just as the story unfolds. Critically this novel is recognized as one of the greatest works on the topic of slavery's impact on slaves, owners, America's past and future. In this analysis of Beloved, the characteristics of new historicism will be used to evaluate this piece of literature. New Historicism is a theory of literary criticism founded primarily by Stephen Greenblatt in the early 1980s. What began as Greenblatt's critique of Shakespeare's works became an improved theory of criticism. The basis of this theory is the opposite of historicism; new historicism criticizes a work not only during the time period in which it is set, but also in the context of the time period in which it was written. In other words, there is no objectivity. When applying new historicism to Beloved, there are certain characteristics that can be applied, including: whether or not there is a sense of mourning, healing, and redemption in the story, whether the events that happen in the novel reflect the times when the author has lived, whether the meanings of the words and the context have changed or remained …… in the center of the paper … oved and the Moniyhan Report.” Modern Language Association 111.3 (1996): 408-20. JSTORWeb. June 11, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/463165.Brizee, Allen, and J.C. Tompkins “New Historicism, Cultural Studies (1980s–Present).” PrudueOnline Writing Lab 2012. Web. 10 November 2013. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/09/.Changizi, Parisa and Parvin Ghasemi "A Foucauldian reading of the beloved by Toni Morrison Journal of Research in Peace, Gender and Development 2.1". 2012): 001-05. Print.Kaes, Anton. "New Historicism: Writing Literary History in the Postmodern Era." 84.2 (1992): 148-58. Network. November 10, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30161347.Morrison, Toni. Beloved. 2nd ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. Print.Zinsser, William. On writing well. 5th ed. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994. 215-17. Press.