Beloved, By Toni Morrison

In Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved is a character whose identity is primarily unknown. She retains some of her memories, although they are mostly obscure and symbolic. Even though she become increasingly obsessed with Sethe, her true objectives are only later revealed, when Sethe realizes that she is most likely the reincarnation of the daughter she killed to protect from slavery. Beloved uses Sethe’s guilt to subjugate her, she forces her mother to give, and then forfeit, everything she has to her, including her own sanity. “Beloved didn’t move; said, ‘Do it,’ and Sethe complied. She took the best of everything – first” (Morrison 277). Beloved starts wearing her mother’s clothes and mimicking her behaviors; Beloved becomes the mother, and Sethe the child. “The bigger Beloved got,

After reading Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, I could not help but feel shocked and taken aback by the detailed picture of life she painted for slaves at the time in American history. The grotesque and twisted nature of life during the era of slavery in America is an opposite world from the politically correct world of 2016. Morrison did not hold back about the harsh realities of slavery. Based on a true story, Toni Morrison wrote Beloved about the life of Sethe, a slave and her family. Toni Morrison left no stone unturned when describing the impact slavery on had the life of slaves. She dove deeper than the surface level of simply elaborating on how terrible it is to be “owned” and forced to do manual labor. Morrison describes in detail, the horrors and profoundly negative impacts slavery had on family bonds, humanity of all people involved and the slaves sense of self even after they acquired their freedom.

In the novel Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison depicts the many aspects of self-actualization, and the difficulties of growing up in a maltreated life. The story revolves around generations of black family in the south during the segregation of whites and blacks. The character of Macon Dead jr., suffers from a sheltered life. Macon jr., is unaware of his family’s history, and the cruel reality of mistreatment during segregation. In the sheltered and confusing environment Macon jr., lives pushes him to find the authentic individual within himself. Macon jr., evolves through the descriptions, events, and experiences of others. But, who is responsible for making Macon jr.,’s journey of self-actualization to be so slow and difficult. His parents, Macon Dead sr., and Ruth Foster Dead, represent the obstacle hindering Macon jr., from his true authentic identity. Many of Macon jr.,’s major problems are a direct result of his parents suffocating mistakes.

Sethe’s relationship is in a balance at the beginning. She has the two poles of attraction, Paul’s desire to settle down and start a family, and Beloved’s desire to draw Sethe back into the past. Throughout the novel, acts of cruelty wind into her life and alter the outcome of her days. Cruelty in Beloved affects both the perpetrator and victim in that the perpetrator becomes consumed by such acts, and the victim simply devolves to be more and more vulnerable to such acts. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Beloved’s acts of cruelty reveal how one’s inner desires can overcome the perpetrator, and dehumanize victim in the long term.

One of the points that is consistently brought up in Toni Morrison’s Paradise is that of the all black town “Ruby”. Paradise uses the setting of Oklahoma to discuss how many black towns are shaped by past history and religion. While the town in this novel is fictional, there have been real all black towns in the United States, and it seems that these towns influenced many aspects of the town Ruby, which is why it is so easy to imagine that the story could actually be real. Many authors have written in general about the novel, and specifically about the town within it.

Toni Morrison brings another surprise to the story of Beloved. The addition of character Beloved conceals whole meaning Morrison tries to conduct to the readers. So far, character Beloved is portrayed as an innocent, pure, yet egotistic girl. Beloved also presumably the incarnation of Sethe’s dead baby, whose tomb is engraved Beloved. Morrison offers supernatural element in the story to create mysterious and spooky atmosphere, which raise curiosity and excite readers even more.

Morrison uses a language packed with desire and need when describing the relationship between Beloved and Denver. Beloved provides emotional sustenance for Denver in a way that Sethe failed as a mother. Denver feels simultaneously responsible for and dependent upon Beloved which further reinforces the connection.

In fact, love is viewed as dangerous in Beloved since there is no certainty that a family will remain intact during slavery, thus some characters proclaim that it is better to love just a little bit or not at all (Morrison 45). It is apparent that Sethe and Beloved are the exception; both protagonists renounce their independent existence to acquire self-recognition through each other, thus laying the foundation for a love between mother and daughter to ultimately

My independent reading book, Beloved by Toni Morrison, was so full of heavy emotion. I really admire Toni Morrison’s use of language. She gives so much detail that I feel like I am there experiencing everything that Sethe is experiencing. She creates an irie suspense that bad things have happened in Sethe’s past and reveals them one by one as Sethe remember and lives through these memories. Morrison beautifully conveys the message that the past cannot be forgotten, it is always to be with us no matter how much we say we have forgotten it. The horrid memories that we put to death will always hurt, because “anything dead coming back to life hurts.” (Morrison)

After reading in depth, slavery, freedom, love and injustice are the major motifs that Morrison uses in order to create the story. Beloved embodies the disremembering of the actions towards black people that took place in the United States. The primary analysis where the protagonist, Sethe, has killed her own child might sound like she is an insane heartless mother who murdered her own daughter. As a result, we believe the ghost of the child haunts her throughout the novel. The simplistic observation is to adjudicate that this act was wrong.

In life people often take the most valuable things for granted and the characters in Beloved are no different. Throughout, the book Sethe has quite a few attractions, all with their own difficulties and blessings. However other characters such as Denver and Beloved, show the readers a different kind of love that plagues the world. Furthermore, in life people are faced with many opportunities to take risks in order to find love, but the real question is are the effects of these actions actually worth it. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, loving is a risky, heroic and potentially stupid act since the object of affection may be taken away at any time

In the novel "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, Morrison has created two very powerful characters: Denver and Beloved. Denver and Beloved are sisters, but in a sense, they weren't always. It used to just be Denver and her mother, Sethe, that lived together in a house. That house was passed down to them by Denver's grandmother, Baby Suggs, which was given to her by a white couple who were out to help the blacks. Sethe and Denver were very content with the way things were. Sethe had a paying job as a cook and Denver never left the house since she was terrified of the horrible "monsters" that could be lurking in the outside world. They also had a spirit that was haunting their house, which was believed to be Denver's sister that was killed as a baby. Until one day, Paul D came to the house and banished the ghost. But the ghost ended up taking human form and stayed with the family from then on. They called her Beloved. Denver had always taken a liking to the ghost, and now that she was human form she was as happy as can be. Beloved was the only friend or even company that Denver ever had growing up. Denver wanted all of Beloved's attention, but Beloved only wanted Sethe. Now that Beloved was back, they could all be a family. But Beloved becomes a threat towards the end and is becoming dangerous.

Are capable of saying that you know what it feels like to be dehumanized? To be made a fool? To be scared of each passing day? Beloved is a story written by Toni Morrison about the hardships that lead the protagonist, Sethe, to kill her own daughter, who would later come back from the grave. Sethe is a middle-aged, former slave who has experienced the cruelest, most unjust torment in her life – slavery. She escaped this barbaric life, but when the chance of being taken away comes back, she has to murder her own daughter to save her. Through close examination of the book, movie, and many other character analysis, it is very clear that Sethe suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and bases her actions on her experiences.

Toni Morrison explores the idea of slavery through her novel, Beloved, by using a variety of literary techniques and postmodern concepts. The idea of the rememory is a major theme throughout the novel that Toni Morrison uses to introduce the lives of Denver and Sethe and the idea of slavery. Rememory is the act of remembering a memory that happened in the past. Beloved, depicted as a ghost, exemplifies the idea of rememory for Sethe because she brings back many memories to Sethe’s mind. Throughout Beloved, Toni Morrison alludes to the Middle Passage and other historical slave events, while depicting slavery memories throughout the entire novel. Many people believe that the idea of Beloved is that she is just representative of Sethe’s daughter, but there is deeper relevance to her character. When Denver replies to Paul D about Beloved being her sister, she states, and “At times At times I think she was—more.” Through the use of rememory, Toni Morrison utilizes narration changes and gothic fantasy to show that Beloved was more than just Denver’s sister; she was a ghost that represented slavery as a whole.

Within the novel Beloved, it is clear for the reader to view slavery as the overlying cause of the events that occur throughout the protagonist Sethe’s life. Slavery has so clearly shaped the history of the United States, and Toni Morrison expertly incorporated fictional characters with this very real topic to describe the many different ways that trauma can change the lives of so many. The characters all act very different following their personal encounters with the impacts of slavery. Morrison incorporates these contrasting reactions within the actual plot of Beloved, and they become a major part of the novel's structure. One major theme seen within Beloved is the way that powerful past experiences, in this case slavery, can impact the ways that individuals not only act towards their loved ones, but the actual ways in which these people display their love.