Beloved

is a firm believer that too much love is bad for a person. In order to keep his brutal past behind him, he believes that one should only love a little. After Sweet Home, Paul D. attempts to kill his new owner and is forced into a chain-gang in which he is performs oral sex on white men. He realizes that even a rooster has more importance than him to white men. He has trouble committing to a woman who offers him shelter and eventually finds himself at 124, where he discovers Sethe’s overwhelming love and madness and Beloved’s presence. He keeps his memories and feelings in a rusted tobacco tin. When Beloved has sex with him, possibly in a vision or dream, the past comes rushing back to him. “He didn’t hear the whisper that the flakes of rust made either as they fell away from the seams of his tobacco tin. So when the lid gave he didn’t know it. What he knew was that when he reached the inside part he was saying, ‘Red heart. Red heart,’ over and over again” and then wakes himself up with his screaming (138). Beloved is both Sethe’s daughter and a symbol for the past generations of slaves. She opens Paul D. to love again, a cruelty in an already cruel world. Keeping love at bay has helped Paul D. and others like Ella feel safe from their pasts. At the end of the novel, when Beloved is gone, Paul D. goes back to 124 to help Sethe. Morrison shows the human capacity to love after so much has been taken or removed from the human

Beloved is consumed by her cruel acts, and simply drains more and more of Sethe’s health. In the beginning of the novel, Beloved appears to be a pretty, young, and lost girl that wanders into Sethe’s house. However, as time passes, she began to display signs that she is Sethe’s past daughter, the daughter that was killed. As Beloved is induced more and more into the family, she begins to feel

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.

Denver has a longing for Beloved. Beloved is her sister and she needs that ghost around. It is as if Beloved is a part of Denver. When they are in the cold room and Denver believes that Beloved leaves Denver cries out because she needs

Denver has to recognize her dependence on others and start to rely on herself so that she can become her own person and reach her full potential. Before Beloved, Denver had only left the house a few times and needed someone’s help to do something. As Beloved and Sethe grow closer, Denver has the chance she needs to realize the dangers of reliance on Sethe and Beloved. In order to survive, Denver is forced to fend for herself and become independent for the first time.

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 and her friends and family both witness and experience the atrocious institutionalized wrongs and unethical societal norms of slave culture. However, Sethe eventually escapes Sweet Home plantation, hoping to provide a better life for her and her children. She finds a home at 124 Bluestone Road with her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs. Like Sethe, Paul D escapes Sweet Home, but he subsequently suffers jail time and further mistreatment. Morrison explains how slavery destroyed Paul D’s ability to love and express himself, “Saying more might push them both to a place they couldn’t get back from. He would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut” (Morrison 86). The metaphorical replacement of Paul D’s heart with a rusted tobacco tin illustrates how slavery removed a human quality from him, almost giving him attributes of a machine rather than a person. Slave owners, Mr. Garner and Schoolteacher, reduced Paul D to a worker without a heart. However, Paul D finds an escape from this with Sethe at

The theme of isolation as in many of the other pieces of literature that we have read this year can been seen in this novel Beloved. The theme can be seen in the isolation of Sethe and her inner self. It can also be seen with Denver and her separation from society because of the children at school. There is also the detachment of Sethe’s family from the rest of the world because of her past and what people think of the house and

            Though short of ultimate union or reunion with Beloved in death, Sethe is unable and unwilling to challenge Beloved's place in her mind and in her home. Only help from others can save her. Denver makes the first humble appeals for help on behalf of her mother. In doing so, she begins to understand and appreciate the vital necessity of a concept of self, influenced by but not completely dependent upon memory. Though Denver does not directly impart this

Notably, being a loving child was very important to those around Denver. After the tragedy of Sethe losing three of her four children, the town she and Denver lived in began shutting her out. Denver was well aware of how the town treated her mother, so Denver did all she could to support her mother. She strongly respected her mother and cared for her deeply, no matter what happened. When Sethe remembered her past and horrible experiences, Denver could always be counted on to help. Additionally, after Beloved became apart of the household, Denver was more than willing to accept her. Denver always considered Beloved the sister she never had, which meant a lot to Denver. Beloved and Denver often relied on one another when they needed someone to

Beloved is a novel by Toni Morrison based on slavery after the Civil War in the year 1873, and the hardships that come with being a slave. This story involves a runaway captive named Sethe, who commits a heinous crime to protect her child from the horrors of slavery. Through her traumas, Sethe runs from the past and tries to live a normal life. The theme of Toni Morrison’s story Beloved is how people cannot escape the past. Every character relates their hard comings to the past through setting, character development, and conflict.

Slavery has been a vital part of America’s history since it began in 1619. Such history must be preserved in order to understand its ongoing influence in issues today, but thousands of stories of those enslaved have been lost or forgotten in time. Toni Morrison expresses why the narrative of slavery must be continued on by integrating the life of Margaret Garner into her novel Beloved. In Beloved, Toni Morrison intertwines fiction with the story of Margaret Garner in order pass it on and explore what might have been if the circumstances surrounding Garner had been different.

Sethe begins to nurture her children, only for her children to have a growing fear that Sethe would kill them one day, enacting her children to distance themselves. Due to Sethe mother’s abandonment, Sethe in fact has never been a “daughter” and the love she displays, Paul D. describes as “too thick” (193) causes resentment from her children. As Sethe undergoes mental and physical abuse from Beloved, causing her strong personality to wither away and becoming fully dependent on Beloved, Sethe gives herself to Beloved, “[a]nything she wanted she got” (283). This is a story not to be passed on for Sethe, she allowed herself to be swallowed up by her own inability to move past her dreadful memories at Sweet Home. The past, “Beloved” began to slowly creep on her, draining away the strong woman she once was. Sethe always tried to nurture her child, the way her mother never nurtured her. However, in the end when she becomes dependent on Beloved, she becomes old and weak. Yet, her positive development occurs when Paul D tells her that she, herself is the most important thing and finally then Sethe moves on.

 Toni Morrison’s powerful novel Beloved is based on the aftermath of slavery and the horrific burden of slavery’s hidden sins.  Morrison chooses to depict the characters that were brutalized in the life of slavery as strong-willed and capable of overcoming such trauma.  This is made possible through the healing of many significant characters, especially Sethe.  Sethe is relieved of her painful agony of escaping Sweet Home as well as dealing with pregnancy with the help of young Amy Denver and Baby Suggs.  Paul D’s contributions to the symbolic healing take place in the attempt to help her erase the past.  Denver plays the most significant role in Sethe’s healing in that she brings the community’s support

In Beloved, Toni Morrison frequently alternates between telling stories from Sethe's past, to telling events in the present. Morrison introduces Beloved, who serves as the link between Sethe and Paul D's past at "Sweet Home" as slaves, and the present, living in Ohio as a free family of three: Sethe, Paul D. and Denver. The character of Beloved allows Morrison to explain the experiences and characteristics of the three characters, and how they are reactions to their pasts. Up to Beloved's arrival, Sethe and Denver lived in a "spiteful house.", which created a state of uneasiness. The ghost of Beloved had driven off Sethe's two sons, yet the mother and daughter continued to live at 124. With the arrival of Paul D., some of Sethe's