Analysis Of Beloved By Toni Morrison

First, the relationship between Sethe and Beloved is especially brought closer together throughout the entire story through this motif. For example, after seeing Beloved for the first time, Sethe had an emergency. “The water she voided was endless. … there was no stopping water breaking from a breaking womb and there was no stopping now” (61). The parallelism of the water implies a familial connection between Sethe and Beloved, foreshadowing that Beloved may be the reincarnation of Sethe’s dead daughter. The influences that Sethe and Beloved have on each other are also exaggerated through water. Soon after Beloved enters Sethe’s home, “rainwater held on to pine needles for dear life and Beloved could not take her eyes of Sethe” (68). This analogy figuratively indicates that Beloved is the rainwater holding onto Sethe, insinuating that Beloved may have an obsession towards Sethe, feeling that she needs to hold on to Sethe to live. Towards the end of the story, it is evident that Sethe and Beloved have an inverse relationship: “the bigger Beloved got, the smaller Sethe became; the brighter Beloved’s eyes, the more those eyes that used never to look away became slits of sleeplessness. Sethe no longer combed her hair or splashed her face with water” (294-295). Sethe is drained of life as she no longer splashes her face with water, which symbolizes life. On the other hand,

Paul D. questions, “[w]hat kind of evil you got in here?” and Sethe responds, “[i]t’s not evil, just sad” (Morrison 10). The spirit of her dead daughter is maddened by her precocious death, and continually punishes Sethe for the crime she committed eighteen years before, by conjuring sadness at 124, trapping Sethe in the freedom of her own home. Chapter five is a notable chapter, the reader is introduced to the reincarnation of the main antagonist, Beloved. It begins with “[a] fully dressed woman [walking] out of the water… [portraying] new skin, lineless and smooth, including the knuckles of her hands” (Morrison 60-61).

Eighteen years before, Sethe escapes from slavery along with her children, but is hunted down by her master. Instead of subjecting them to the brutality of slavery, Sethe tries to kill her children, succeeding in killing her three-year-old daughter. Ever since, the family has been isolated from society

When Sethe first meets Beloved, she welcomes her with a suspiciously large magnitude. Furthermore, it is clear that Sethe never revealed her past experiences to Denver, yet the moment Beloved asks about her lost earrings, it was “the first time she had heard anything about her(Sethe’s) mother’s mother”(61). This proves that Beloved, and not anyone else, is pulling Sethe to the past, by making her recollect of her days as a slave. In addition,“it is clear why she holds on to you(Sethe), but I just can’t see why you holding on to her,” Paul mentioned(67). This shows how Paul realizes that Sethe has taken in Beloved without much reasoning, and when Beloved hums a song that Sethe happened to make up, Sethe fully but blindly embraces Beloved as family. In fact, she “had gone to bed smiling,” anxious to “unravel the proof for the conclusion she had already leapt to”(181). This shows how consumed by Beloved she is.

As Sethe's demise and Beloved's mischief become overwhelming, Denver assumes the responsibility to assure the survival of her family. Due to Beloved's presence, Sethe loses her job and soon all of her savings is spent. There is no food, however, Beloved's demands do not cease. Sethe begins to wither away from frustration and a wounded conscience and Denver becomes "listless and sleepy with hunger" (242). Denver realizes that, "she would have to leave the yard; stop off the edge of the world, leave the two behind and go ask somebody for help" (243). Denver must face her terror of a mundane society to keep her sister and mother from starvation.

Beloved has been amongst the living and the dead. According to her, the purpose of life is to become dead. Halle, the man on her face, has accomplished this through disappearing. Nobody knows anything about him, so he is as good as dead. Contrarily, Beloved has always been on Sethe’s mind. Killing her own daughter is memory that she can not forget. Beloved is brought back to life because she can not be forgotten. “What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head” (page 36). It is impossible to forget the memory of Beloved because she was murdered in the shed right outside 124Bluestone Road. The memory stays right in the place where it happened. Halle’s death is back in Sweet Home since he never made it to 124Bluestone Road. Sethe has never gone back to there, so she can not pass by the place to bring back her rememory and so he stays dead. “her [Sethe’s] face is my own and I want to be there in the place where her face is and to be looking at it too” (page 210). Earlier in the chapter Beloved wants to be with her mother. She misses Sethe because, even after all Sethe has put her through, she is still her mother. She wants to look up to that familiar face that can be recognizable as her own. As Beloved thinks more about Sethe, her tone changes, “the woman is there with the face I want the face that is mine” (page 211). Beloved no longer wants to look up to Sethe, but to control her. This is what ends up

We learn a lot about the healing process of Sethe due to what Beloved has done to her. Beloved forces Sethe to confront her past so much that she is

It is shown that after the act of taking the life of Beloved and attempting the life taking of Denver, Howard, and Buglar, that Sethe truly does love her children. The way Sethe tried to go about saving her children seems unethical and horrible, but there did not seem to be all too many options for Sethe to save her children from the slave life. Howard and Buglar left Sethe and Denver to get away from Sethe, they had even warned Denver about what she had attempted to do to them. Although Howard and Buglar ran from Sethe and there was the attempted murder in the barn, Sethe still thinks of them because they are her children. Denver was tossed as an infant that day in the barn, and she clearly survives. Even after all the events and situations created from the presence of Beloved there is still a strong bond of love between Sethe and Denver. Sethe loves Denver very much, she is her one surviving child that is still with her.

Sethe hears beloved humming a song she made up for her children and realizes that it's her baby that she killed

Late in 1987, after being inspired by a fellow story of a female fugitive slave, Toni Morrison pens a novel about a runaway slave and her children. Although Morrison’s “Beloved” quickly became a best-seller, and even has a movie adaption, it still left the audience with many unanswered questions. This novel not only gave a voice to those who were often silenced in the male stories of slavery, but it also perfectly exemplified the relationship was between the mother and the child, and the effects of slavery. Much like Jacob’s autobiography, Morrison follows directly on the issue of shame, as the protagonist of this novel is often haunted by her actions following the passing of the Fugitive

Beloved is seen as the resemblance of Sethe’s dead baby. Beloved is portrayed as a teenage girl, however she is different from other black teenager, “…and younger than her clothes suggested – good lace at the throat, and a rich woman’s hat. Her skin was flawless except for three vertical scratches on her forehead so fine and thin they seemed at first like hair, baby hair before it bloomed and roped into the masses of black yarn under her hat.” (Morrison 62). Beloved unexpectedly came to 124, the house where Sethe, Denver, and Paul D lived. However, Sethe became attracted to her, “Sethe was deeply touched by her sweet name; the remembrance of glittering headstone made her feel especially kindly toward her. Denver, however, was shaking. She looked at this sleepy beauty and wanted more.” (Morrison 63) represent Sethe’s fascination towards Beloved, because she made Sethe recall her dead baby, which also has the word Beloved engraved in the gravestone. The name Beloved itself makes Sethe sentimental from

Sethe lives in the shadow of her act of infanticide throughout the entire length of the book. This is because its legacy pervades itself throughout the entire novel, showing events leading up, and ways the future has been affected. The novel begins as such: “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. (Page 1)” This baby refers to Beloved, who became a ghostly presence in Sethe’s house and continuously terrorizes the house

Sethe is overcome with guilt with Beloved, as she begins to try to make up for the past when beloved reappears, “anything she wanted she got, and when Sethe ran out of things to give her, Beloved invented desire. She wanted sethe’s company for hours to watch the layer of brown leaves waving at them from the bottom of the creek”, in her eyes this is her way of coping with the initial loss of Beloved, of which she denied herself until the beginning of section three (Morrison). Further on in the text we see that Sethe loses her job because of her inability to work and take care of Beloved which can signify that Beloved was causing her more harm than good. Her guilt from the first loss of Beloved fuels her desire to please the reincarnation of something that causes more harm than good. This is similar to how Janie feels when she deals with the death of Tea Cakes, his death was a necessary evil in order to free him, and that is the only comfort and closure that Janie receives after his

Slavery, which is the state of being a slave, defined as “a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant” is pure destruction to one's identity, both physically and mentally. In the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison the story begins to unfold when Paul D who Sethe has not seen in 20 years since working on the same plantation together visits 124. The novel has 2 different time settings, one present, and one 20 years earlier. Sethe through her broken identity does not know who she is, all she knows is that motherhood is the only important thing that matters to her, now that everything she identified with has been ripped and washed away by slavery. What Morrison reveals about about slavery is how brutal and cruel

With Beloved’s arrival and back into Seth’s life, Sethe also feels the need of going back into the memory of Baby Suggs, her mother in law. Baby Suggs held religious gatherings at a place called the clearing, where she taught her followers to love their voices, bodies and minds. However, after Sethe’s act of infanticide, Baby Suggs stops preaching and retreats to a sick bed to die. Accompanied by Denver and Beloved, Sethe feels the need to go to the clearing where Baby Suggs used to preach. “Baby Suggs’ long distance love was equal to any skin- close love she had known. The desire, let alone the gesture, to meet her needs was good enough to lift her spirits to the place where she could take the next step (pg 112).” In this section the memory of Baby Suggs also comes onto the surface, making Sethe want to remember her death by the presence of Beloved.