Who or what is Beloved?

Beloved’s elusive, complex identity is central to our understanding of the novel. She may, as Sethe originally believes, be an ordinary woman who was locked up by a white man and never let out of doors. Her limited linguistic ability, neediness, baby-soft skin, and emotional instability could all be explained by a lifetime spent in captivity. But these traits could also support the theory that is held by most of the characters in the novel, as well as most readers: Beloved is the embodied spirit of Sethe’s dead daughter. Beloved is the age the baby would have been had it lived, and she bears the name printed on the baby’s tombstone. She first appears to Sethe soaking wet, as though newly born, and Sethe has the sensation of her water breaking when she sees her. Additionally, Beloved knows about a pair of earrings Sethe possessed long ago, she hums a song Sethe made up for her children, she has a long scar under her chin where her death-wound would have been dealt, and her breath smells like milk.

A third interpretation views Beloved as a representation of Sethe’s dead mother. In Chapter 22, Beloved recounts memories that correspond to those that Sethe’s mother might have had of her passage to America from Africa. Beloved has a strange manner of speaking and seems to wear a perpetual smile—traits we are told were shared by Sethe’s mother. By Chapter 26, Beloved and Sethe have switched places, with Beloved acting as the mother and Sethe as the child. Their role reversal may simply mark more explicitly what has been Beloved’s role all along. On a more general level, Beloved may also stand for all of the slaves who made the passage across the Atlantic. She may give voice to and embody the collective unconscious of all those oppressed by slavery’s history and legacy.

Beloved is presented as an allegorical figure. Whether she is Sethe’s daughter, Sethe’s mother, or a representative of all of slavery’s victims, Beloved represents the past returned to haunt the present. The characters’ confrontations with Beloved and, consequently, their pasts, are complex. The interaction between Beloved and Sethe is given particular attention in the book. Once Sethe reciprocates Beloved’s violent passion for her, the two become locked in a destructive, exclusive, parasitic relationship. When she is with Beloved, Sethe is paralyzed in the past. She devotes all her attention to making Beloved understand why she reacted to schoolteacher’s arrival the way she did. Paradoxically, Beloved’s presence is enabling at the same time that it is destructive. Beloved allows and inspires Sethe to tell the stories she never tells—stories about her own feelings of abandonment by her mother, about the harshest indignities she suffered at Sweet Home, and about her motivations for murdering her daughter. By engaging with her past, Sethe begins to learn about herself and the extent of her ability to live in the present.

Beloved also inspires the growth of other characters in the novel. Though Paul D’s hatred for Beloved never ceases, their strange, dreamlike sexual encounters open the lid of his “tobacco tin” heart, allowing him to remember, feel, and love again. Denver benefits the most from Beloved’s presence, though indirectly. At first she feels an intense dependence on Beloved, convinced that in Beloved’s absence she has no “self” of her own. Later, however, Beloved’s increasingly malevolent, temperamental, self-centered actions alert Denver to the dangers of the past Beloved represents. Ultimately, Beloved’s tyranny over Sethe forces Denver to leave 124 and seek help in the community. Denver’s exile from 124 marks the beginning of her social integration and of her search for independence and self-possession.

Toni Morrison, in an effort to describe the motivation and pride of Sethe's character, made the statement, "To kill my children is preferable to having them die". Saving her children from slavery and the promise of spiritual and emotional death that such an institution imposes is the rational of love that Sethe's character clings to. The truth that Sethe's character selfishly avoids is the actual physical death that she has inflicted upon her child. Understanding why a woman would kill any child, let alone her own baby, is at best an enigma. Sethe's character is no exception. Sethe's motivation does not fit into a simple schematic. Sethe is presented as a woman who loves her children so much that she is willing to kill them rather than allow them to be broken by an evil institution. Love is, then, Sethe's primary motivation for killing her baby. However, Sethe's love for her children does not preclude her responsibility for Beloved's death. Indeed, Sethe's selfish fault lies in the fact that she has shifted the locus of responsibility from herself to the institution that has spawned her. Ultimately, it is Sethe who is responsible for her child's death, not slavery. Sethe kills her daughter to demonstrate her love. Sethe exhibits her selfish pride by repudiating her own guilt. Does Sethe realize her fault? Perhaps. When presented the notion that Sethe, and not her children, is her own "best thing", her reply takes the form of a question, "Me? Me?". Morrison leaves the reader with the sense that Sethe might realize that she has loved her children too much, and herself not enough.  

Although Beloved vanishes at the end of the book, she is never really gone—her dress and her story, forgotten by the town but preserved by the novel, remain. Beloved represents a destructive and painful past, but she also signals the possibility of a brighter future. She gives the people of 124, and eventually the entire community, a chance to engage with the memories they have suppressed. Through confrontation, the community can reclaim and learn from its forgotten and ignored memories.

I think that the reason that Beloved disappears is because Sethe's ability to identify with the human race is returned to her and her conscience is reattached when the women hold Sethe back from killing Mr. Bodwin.  This allows Sethe to have direct access to her guilt and truly begin to forgive herself.  The guilt is still there, and she wants to take the easy way out and die.  She tells Paul D "She left me… she was my best thing" .  Finally, it is Paul D that finally helps her forgive herself the most, when he responds "You are your best thing, Sethe" . Sethe is herself beloved. Beloved is gone, but instead of dying, Sethe can now begin to live her free life to the fullest extent. She conquers her conscience and her past with the help of her future, her real daughter, Denver, and her lover, Paul. In my opinion, though I think that Morrison leaves Beloved's actual presence and person up to the reader to decide, Beloved is the ghost of the baby girl whom Sethe killed years ago when she was trying to spare all of her children from returning to the cruelty of schoolmaster. Because Beloved was killed in such a horrible way, even though it was out of love in Sethe's mind, she came back to reconcile with Sethe and force them all to think about consequences of the past, and the reader to dwell on slavery and regret. After Paul D drives Beloved's ghost as a baby from the house, she returns as a beautiful, eerie young woman, and the book really explodes. God, it's SO good. For more about who Beloved is/was, read over that chapter again where it's inside.

WOD COUNT: 1610