RRS: Beloved
TITLE:Beloved
PUBLICATION DATE: September 1987
AUTHOR: Toni Morrison
NATIONALITY: American
AUTHOR'S BIRTH DATE/DEATH DATE: February 18, 1931- current
DISTINGUISHING TRAITS OF THE AUTHOR:
Toni Morrison is a critically acclaimed author. She is a Nobel Peace Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner. She is especially known for her works in African American literature. Toni Morrison was born as Chloe Anthony Wofford to George and Ramah Wofford. She was the second oldest of four children. Her father, George, worked as a welder among many other things while her mother, Ramah, was a house servant. Her parents gave Morrison a love for folklore, reading, and music. Because Morrison grew up in a racially integrated area, she was unaware of racial discrimination until she was in her late teens.
SETTING:
Beloved takes place during the Reconstruction Era in Southern America from 1854 to 1874. The majority of the physical setting of the novel takes place at the “gray and white house on Bluestone Road” numbered 124 in Cincinnati (1). The physical colors of the house are dull. 124 is a symbolic extension of the lifeless owners who live inside it. This is a house haunted by the spirit of the dead baby. Sethe flashes back to Sweet Home in Kentucky where she was enslaved under the Garners. Despite its name, Sweet Home is a beautiful place juxtaposed with, “boys hanging from the most beautiful sycamores in the world” (7). The experiences that Sethe has at Sweet Home influence her daily even though she has escaped to freedom. Sethe has successfully escaped to a black and free neighborhood. Here she is allowed to live out her life, enjoy the colors of the world without the constant fear and terror of the slave owners. Now during the majority of the time back in the present, Sethe is persecuted and forced to be isolated within 124 along with Denver as a consequence for the impulsive actions committed by Sethe.
BRIEF PLOT SYNOPSIS:
The novel begins at 124 Bluestone, Road, a house where Sethe, Denver, and the ghost of Beloved live. There is a brief period of introduction to some history behind the characters, revealing that Baby Suggs has recently passed away and Sethe’s two sons have ran away. This exposition leads up to Paul D showing up. It is revealed that Paul D was a slave with Sethe at a plantation named Sweet Home, which they both managed to escape from about eighteen years ago. Due to Paul D’s appearance at 124, Sethe is reminded of what Sweet Home was like. It wasran by Mr. and Mrs. Garner, who were not very abusive like most slave owners tended to be. However, they both passed away, leaving Sweet Home to be ran by Schoolteacher, a relative of the Garners. Unlike Mr. Garner, schoolteacher ran the plantation with strict rules and cruel punishments. Sethe also remembers Halle, her husband that she met at Sweet Home who was supposed to escape with her but never showed up.
Denver begins to dislike Paul D’s presence. He is the first person to show up to the house in years, and now is taking all of Sethe’s attention away from her. Paul D eventually scares away the ghost of Beloved, leaving Denver even more upset because that was the only other person, besides Sethe, that she could talk to. However, their relationship does manage to improve over time, culminating in a carnival in which all three of them attend and have fun at. However, upon their return they see a fully clothed nineteen-year-old woman come out of the water near 124 who claims her name is Beloved. Denver knows immediately that this is Beloved, Sethe’s deceased daughter who was the ghost of 124, somehow reborn. Paul D and Sethe do not know immediately who it is.
Through various fragments around this time the full history of each character is revealed. Paul D, as well as Paul A, Paul F, Sixo and Halle were all slaves at Sweet Home. Baby Suggs was also a slave there, working as an assistant to Mrs. Garner. However, Halle worked his days off to get enough money to buy Baby Suggs’ freedom. After she left, the Garners replaced her with Sethe. Between the slaves, there was a lot of anticipation over who Sethe would choose to marry, and she eventually chose Halle. She attempted to make a dress out of various patches of fabric and was given earrings by Mrs. Garner. Eventually, Sweet Home was given to Schoolteacher who abused the salves, convincing them all to try to escape. Paul D and Sixo were caught in their attempt. Sixo was burned alive and Paul D was shackled and forced to have an iron bit in his mouth. Eventually he was sent to a prison camp.
Sethe planned to escape with Halle, after she was raped by some relatives of Schoolteacher. Halle witnessed the entire thing and was unable to cope with what happened. It is never really explained what happens to him after Sethe leaves. Sethe does manage to escape, as well as her children who she sent ahead. She is badly wounded, however, and is left crawling until she is found by Amy Dever, a white traveler on her way to Boston. Amy massages Sethe’s feet and helps treat the scars on her back. Shethe was pregnant at the time, and her water breaks, and Amy helps her to deliver her baby. This inspires Sethe to name the baby Denver. Stamp Paid, someone who assisted with the underground railroad then takes Sethe across a river, where she is led by Ella to 124, where Baby Suggs was living.
For Paul D, he was sent to prison camp where he was tortured even more. He was chained up with other prisoners and forced to work in a trench, where it would normally be impossible to escape. However one day, it starts to rain, filling up the trench, and the guards leave the prisoners to drown. They instead work together to climb out of the trench before they die and manage to make it to a Cherokee village where the native americans cut their chains. Paul D eventually leaves in search of Sethe, eventually finding her at 124
Back in the present timeline, Paul D begins to feel that there is something strange about Beloved. They eventually end up having sexual relationship, which Beloved uses to get him out of the house, as he keeps trying to avoid her seductive nature. While this gets him to not sleep in the house, it is actually eventually Stamp Paid that gets him out. Stamp Paid reveals that Sethe had killed Beloved and tried to kill Denver, and her two sons, when she saw Schoolteacher coming toward the house. Her reasoning was that she loved them too much to see them become slaves, but Paul D thinks it was animalistic and leaves. He ends up staying in the local church’s basement.
Beloved starts to take control over Sethe, who loses her job and struggles to get food, giving up her portion to Beloved. Sethe becomes bedridden in a similar way to how Baby Suggs was before she died. Denver can’t watch this happen and leaves to find work. When she talks to the Bodwins, they organize the local community to try to get rid of Beloved. They march toward the house, but when they show up Sehte attacks Mr. Bodwin mistaking him for Schoolteacher. By the time they stop her, Beloved had disappeared. After a while, the community forgets Beloved ever even existed, and Sethe, Denver, and Paul D struggle to remember any specific thing she has ever said and wonder whether she even existed.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERS:
Sethe: Sethe is a kind and loving mother, however, she is prone to loving too strongly. At one point in the novel, Paul D tells Sethe that her “love is too thick” (193), to which she responds “Too thick? … Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all” (194). Essentially, Sethe feels the type of love she displays is normal, anything less wouldn’t be love. However, her love led her to kill her own daughter and attempt to kill her other children so they wouldn’t experience slavery. This action is casts Sethe out from the community, as they do not agree with her actions. She loved too deeply, and as a result has ended up where she is in the present timeline of the novel. This love also affects Denver, who ends up living a sheltered lifestyle for eighteen years of her life. She loves her too much and tries to protect her from the rememories of others that she might accidentally walk into, and keeps her from really going out into the community. Overall, Sethe has a tendency to love too deeply leading to negative consequences.
Beloved: At first glance, Beloved appears to be the reincarnation of Sethe's third child, the one whose head she sawed off after seeing the schoolteacher's hat approaching 124. Beloved's actual identity is ambiguous, especially since she mimics the characteristics of those around her. At one point, Denver finds it “difficult” to “tell who was who” when Sethe and Beloved are together, and in the last chapter of the book, “a child, an adult” could both “place his feet” in her footprints by the stream, and they would both fit (283, 324). Beloved seems to symbolize a shared experience for those who had endured slavery, and the references to a dark place with piles of dead people among the living may be descriptions of the slave ships of the Middle Passage. Beloved's lack of a concrete identity makes her able to take on the experiences of anyone, and thus explains why her tracks by the stream can fit anyone, regardless of age.
Denver: Denver is the fourth child of Sethe who was born during Sethe’s escape from Sweet Home. Denver is the most dynamic character because she transforms from a shy and reserved child who is social and willing to reach out to the community. Her emotional growth has been stunted by the fact that she lives in complete isolation from the rest of the community. For Denver, she takes her greatest pride and joy in the story of her birth. This story is something unique to her and her alone. Sadly, the only companion she has growing up is the ghost inside the house. In her loneliness, “Denver’s imagination produced its own hunger and its own food” (35). Therefore, when Beloved first appeared, Denver is excited and takes on a motherly role of protecting Beloved. Finally, her sister has returned. However, to Denver’s disappointment, Beloved is calculating and focused solely on Sethe. Denver assumes the position as the head of the household by going out of her comfort zone to seek and job and help. Even though Denver loses her only companion, she repossess her own identity and discovers herself when she forgives and positively looks for change.
Paul D: Paul D spends the novel trying to escape the torture and memories of the past. His history serves to exemplify the cruel treatment of the saves before and during the civil war. He was forced to wear an iron bit with his ankles shackled after getting caught trying to escape. Eventually he was sent to a prison camp where he lived in a trench chained to other prisoners, and left to drown. During the civil war he fought for both sides, he was forced to fight for the south, and was promised freedom if he fought for the north so he switched sides. However, at the end of the war, he did not feel any more free on either side. Eventually, when he escapes it all, he decides to walk for almost eighteen years trying to find Sethe. His heart had long since been replaced by a rusted tobacco tin containing the memories of the torture. When he sees Beloved, who serves as a link to the past in may way, his memories begin to come back to him, giving him a red heart once again.
Baby Suggs: Baby Suggs is the mother of Halle and the grandmother of Denver. After suffering a life of abuse and cruelty, Baby Suggs finally left a life of slavery after Halle bought her freedom. For Baby Suggs, “my first born… all I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of break… eight children and that’s all I remember” (6). Mr. Garner delivers Baby Suggs to the Bodwins where she works as a lively and much-loved persona in the community. To the other people of the community, Baby Suggs serves as an inspiration and hope for the people. The bright colors that Baby Suggs has been deprived of the most of her life has become the only sense of comfort for her near her death. Baby Suggs becomes depressed, a great part because of Sethe’s actions and the running away of her two grandsons.
Halle: Halle is the husband of Sethe, and Baby Suggs’ son. Halle was always considered, “too good… too good for the world” (245). Instead of working for himself, Halle selflessly works extra to make money to release Baby Suggs from bondage. All was well planned amongst the slaves to escape from Sweet Home. However, Halle tragically saw his wife beings raped by the nephews. From that point on, Halle loses his sanity. His identity as a man has long deteriorated from the constant abuse he must take as a slave.
Sixo: Sixo is one of the Sweet Home men, and the only one that manages to make a distinctive impression, other than Paul D. He is also the only one who does not lust after Sethe, mainly because he already has a girl- the Thirty-Mile-Woman, Patsy. Sixo seems more bold than the other Sweet Home men, especially in confronting the schoolteacher. When the schoolteacher starves them as punishment, Sixo unabashedly kills livestock to eat, and explains himself by saying that he was actually “improving your property, sir”, since he feeds himself and is now able to do more work for the schoolteacher (224). Sixo's audacious nature and his fearlessness eventually leads up to his death, when he was captured while trying to escape and then burned alive.
Schoolteacher: Schoolteacher is the main source of tyranny and torture at Sweet Home who forces the prompt escape by the slaves. After Mr. Garner passes away, schoolteacher takes charge of Sweet home. From that point on, schoolteacher begins an oppressive regime on the slaves at Sweet home. His racism is evident in how he teaches his pupils to, “put her human characteristics on the left, her animal ones on the right: (228). Schoolteacher enjoys his absolute power over the slaves. His philosophy is that, “definitions belong to the definers – not the defined.” (225).
Lady Jones: Lady Jones is the teacher in the community who helps Denver reintegrate back into society, Lady Jones, “was mixed [with] gray eyes and yellow wooly hair every strand of which she hated… she had married in the blackest man she could find” (291). Despite her physical differences, Lady Jones is still a committed to teaching and guiding her black students. Ultimately, Lady Jones acts as a mentor and guiding light who helps Denver surpass this crisis to become a woman.
Stamp Paid: Well-known and widely welcomed in the black community of Cincinnati, Stamp Paid ferries people across the Ohio and toward freedom. His original name was Joshua, but he changed it after he had to surrender his wife to his master's son for a year. The loss of her and the ability to feel affection for her that he previously had caused him to change his name. He finds his old name to be too close to the humiliations that he endured, and casts it off in order to maintain an identity that he can proudly call his own. “Stamp Paid” refers to his debts being paid off for this lifetime as a result of what happened to his wife. Stamp Paid was also a close friend of Baby Suggs's before she died, and had tried to get her preaching again after schoolteacher's visit.
Ella: Ella is the woman who gathers all the women together to exorcise Beloved from 124. After Denver takes the first initiative to improve her life, the people of the community see her change and want to help her. Ella argued that, the children can’t just up and kill the mama” (301). As a member of the Underground Railroad like the others, Ella also has her own dark past. Her beliefs stems from her background where, “nobody loved her… her puberty was spent in a house where she was shared by father and son, whom she called the lowest yet” (301). Therefore Ella understands the darkness that Sethe is fighting through, and help abolishes Beloved from 124.
The Garners: The owners of Sweet Home, and the slaveholders who own Sethe, Halle, Paul A, Paul F, Paul D, Sixo, and Baby Suggs before Halle buys her freedom. Mr. Garner gave the male slaves of Sweet Home some more autonomy than other plantations, which included giving them guns and allowing them to discuss and talk with him on a somewhat more even playing field. Paul D initially accepts being called a “man” for such reasons, but later, after he leaves 124 because of Stamp Paid's newspaper clipping, begins to wonder if he really was a “man”, or if the only right he had to that word was the fact that a white man (Mr. Garner) had called him that. Although Mr. Garner is given the distinction of practicing a somewhat less dehumanizing form of slavery, there is still doubt cast into his true intentions. Mr. Garner implies that calling his slaves “men” made them more efficient than boys, and he has his unorthodox form of slavery in place in order to run his plantation, not because he thinks that his slaves are equals. After Mr. Garner's death, Mrs. Garner developed a tumor in her neck, and Sweet Home fell under the control of the schoolteacher.