Ann Snitow's reaction to "Beloved" neatly illustrates how Morrison criticism began to evolve and move toward new modes of interpretation. In her 1987 review of "Beloved", Snitow argues that Beloved, the ghost at the center of the narrative, is "too light" and "hollow", rendering the entire novel "airless". Snitow changed her position after reading criticism that interpreted "Beloved" in a different way, seeing something more complicated and burdened than a literal ghost, something requiring different forms of creative expression and critical interpretation. The conflicts at work here are ideological as well as critical: they concern the definition and evaluation of American and African-American literature, the relationship between art and politics, and the tension between recognition and appropriation.