About Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison was one of the most celebrated and influential authors of her time. Born in 1931 in Ohio, she faced racial discrimination from a young age but found solace in reading and writing. Morrison made history as the first African-American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 for her powerful novel Beloved, which explored the traumatic legacy of slavery. Her other acclaimed works, such as The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Song of Solomon, shed light on the African-American experience and race relations in the United States, earning her numerous prestigious awards and honors. In addition to her novels, Morrison wrote plays, essays, and children's books. She taught at various universities, including Howard and Princeton, inspiring generations of writers with her groundbreaking literature. Morrison's lasting impact on American literature was recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among many other accolades, before her passing in 2019.
Brief overview of Beloved
Beloved begins with Sethe, a former enslaved woman, living in Cincinnati after the Civil War with her daughter Denver. Their home is haunted by the ghost of Sethe's other daughter who died as an infant when Sethe tried to kill her children to save them from slavery. Paul D, who knew Sethe from the plantation where they were slave, arrives and his presence forces Sethe to confront her traumatic past.
A mysterious pregnant woman named Beloved then shows up and moves into their home. Sethe comes to believe Beloved is the reincarnation of her dead daughter. Beloved grows extremely attached and abusive towards Sethe, controlling her movements and demanding her undivided attention. After learning that Sethe killed her infant daughter by slitting her throat, Paul D leaves, disturbed by Sethe's past act.
As Beloved's behavior becomes increasingly parasitic, Denver finally breaks free from the house to get help from the community. They rally together to exorcise Beloved from the home. After a confrontation, Beloved disappears, allowing Sethe and Denver to begin healing. Through the metaphor of Beloved's haunting presence, the novel explores the lasting psychological impacts and intergenerational trauma caused by the inhumane institution of slavery.
Major Characters Analysis
Sethe
An iron-willed, iron-eyed woman, Sethe is haunted not only by the ghost of her dead daughter but also by the memories of her life as a slave. While she has been scarred by the physical brutality of schoolteacher's nephews, she seems even more deeply disturbed by her discovery that most white people view her as nothing more than an animal. She asserts her humanity through her determination to reach freedom and to give her children a free life. Her escape from Sweet Home demonstrates the force of her will to overcome impossible circumstances and foreshadows the desperate measures that she'll take to keep her children from becoming slaves.
Much of Sethe's internal struggle also derives from her ambiguous relationship with her mother. Because of the long hours her mother worked, Sethe barely knew her. However, through Nan she knows that she was the product of a loving union. Of all her mother's children, Sethe was the only one given a name and allowed to live. The comfort she may derive from this knowledge is tempered, though, by the suspicion that her mother was trying to run away when she was caught and hanged. If her mother was indeed trying to escape, she was abandoning Sethe in the process. This abandonment was twofold, because her mother not only left Sethe without her only living relative, but she also forced Sethe to face the horrors of slavery on her own.Her mother's abandonment affected Sethe deeply and helps explain the choices she makes as a mother. Notice Sethe's resolve not to do the same thing to her children. She refuses to leave them without a mother when they've gone ahead to Ohio, and she risks her own life to reach them. When faced with the reality that her children may be sent back into slavery, Sethe chooses to free them through death rather than allow them to encounter even a portion of her past experiences. In Sethe's mind, killing her children to save them from slavery is the ultimate expression of a mother's love.
Beloved
Some debate exists over the identity of Beloved. While some critics claim that she is the spirit of Sethe's murdered daughter, others argue that she is a human woman who is mentally unstable. The most common interpretation of the Beloved character, however, is that she is the spirit of Sethe's dead child and, as Denver notes, "something more." That something more is a collective spirit of all the unnamed slaves who were torn from their homes in Africa and brought to America in the cramped and unsanitary holds of slave ships. You can find evidence for this interpretation in Beloved's stream of consciousness narrative in Chapter 22. In this chapter, Beloved remembers crouching in a hot place where people are crowded together and dying of thirst.Because Sethe's mother came from Africa, the experience that Beloved remembers is also Sethe's mother's experience. In a sense, Beloved is not only Sethe's daughter but her mother as well. Because Beloved is supernatural and represents the spirit of multiple people, Morrison doesn't develop her character as an individual. Beloved acts as a force rather than as a person, compelling Sethe, Denver, and Paul D to behave in certain ways. Beloved defines herself through Sethe's experiences and actions, and in the beginning, she acts as a somewhat positive force, helping Sethe face the past by repeatedly asking her to tell stories about her life. In the end, however, Beloved's need becomes overwhelming and her attachment to Sethe becomes destructive.
Notice that Morrison dedicates the book to "sixty Million and more," an estimated number of people who died in slavery. Beloved represents Sethe's unnamed child but also the unnamed masses that died and were forgotten. With this book, Morrison states that they are beloved as well.
Denver
Denver experiences the most positive personal growth in Beloved and represents the African American hope for the future. Sethe comments that Denver is a charmed child, and indeed Denver seems to survive impossible circumstances. However, physical survival is not enough. Denver displays intelligence and promise as a child, but her innocence is destroyed when she discovers what Sethe did to her sister and planned to do to her as well.
With the loss of her brothers and grandmother, Denver becomes increasingly isolated and self-centered. Even as a young adult, her attitude is still very childlike; for instance, she behaves rudely when Paul D arrives and wants only to hear stories about herself. Denver's initial immaturity demonstrates how Sethe's inability to escape her past has also trapped her daughters. One daughter, Beloved, is dead and remains forever a child haunting their house, and the other daughter, Denver, lives as a child, never venturing beyond her own yard.Beloved's arrival at 124 marks the beginning of Denver's transformation. She finally has someone to devote herself to — someone to love. Note how Denver becomes industrious after Beloved arrives, whereas before she was lazy. As Beloved gradually takes over the house and weakens Sethe, Denver recognizes that the family's survival rests upon her shoulders. Denver is finally able to step out of Sethe's world into the outside world and begin her own life. By the end of the novel, Denver is a mature young woman who has become a part of a larger community and who appears to have a future of love and family ahead of her.
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