The character of Beloved embodies three generations of
slavery and is a symbol of the ghost of the more general historical past of
slavery just as she haunts the lives of her mother, Denver, and anyone else who
comes in contact with family on Bluestone Road. She forces the characters in
the novel, most notably her mother, to first recognize the pain from her past
before she can begin to work through it and her presence causes all of the
characters to come to terms with themselves before she leaves. Not only does
this storytelling offer the possibility of reconciliation with the past or a
better understanding of it on a symbolic level with the character Beloved
serving as a symbol, it serves some important functions for the reader as well.
Beloved, when viewed symbolically is more than merely a character in “Beloved”
but holds great importance as a symbol in the novel as well. These stories that
are contained within the complex character of Beloved in the novel by Toni
Morrison, many of which are mere fragments that cannot be truly pieced together
until the end of the novel, relate a vivid, stark and relentless portrait of
some of the worst horrors of slavery.
Many of the reminisces detail a life of brutal and inhumane
treatment and what is most striking is the way all of the main characters are
unable to accept their past and look the future because of this past. On the
one hand then, Beloved, as a symbolic character, offers a chance to unearth and
make peace with the past before looking to the future as well as the
supernatural possibility of rebirth into a new and better world but on the
other, From the moment she arrives she is already a symbol as she is newly
reborn and childlike, she forces the characters to understand their history and
through this, the reader sees how Beloved represents three generations of
slavery and the horrible historical impact of slavery; from Baby Suggs and her
grandmother, whom Sethe barely remembers, to her own mother, to herself and
sister—not to mention the departed presences of her long-gone brothers.
Unlike Baby Suggs who represents the older end of the chain
of the damages of slavery who, by the end of her life, at the narrator of
“Beloved” by Toni Morrison states her, “ past had been like her
present—intolerable—and since she knew death was anything but forgetfulness,
she used the little left energy to ponder color” (4) the presence of Beloved
allows for pained and slow reconciliation of history and the past for a new
generation that does not only include her sister Denver, but Sethe as well, as
expressed in this as one of the important quotes from “Beloved” by Toni
Morrison. By the end of the novel even the community in Cincinnati is brought
closer together as they work together instead of functioning from the past as
they come to aid the people at Bluestone Road. This is a hopeful symbolic
message at the end of a novel that is almost impossible to read at times
because of the pain it invokes and this ending is the result of Beloved’s
presence as a symbol in the novel as she ties together the disparate
generations of slavery.
Beloved acts as a mode of “intervention” in the novel as she
interrupts the cyclical nature of the pain and unwillingness to face memory and
history by both the reader as well as her mother and other characters in the
novel. As one scholar notes, “In the absence of intervention, the trauma might
continue unabated, involving its survivors in the patterns of precipitating
violence, while also—and perhaps more importantly for our historical
sense—exercising a mystifying influence on our social narratives of agency”
(Spargo 115). As a character, Beloved represents not only her own history as
being one who, before her murder, lived along the edge of the line between
freedom and slavery, but the history of several generations as she acts out the
pain of others by forcing along their remembrances.
There is little room for doubt regarding the symbolic nature
of Beloved’s character in the novel by Toni Morrison. The stories that emerge
as a result of her questioning of main characters reveal a darkhistory of
slavery for the characters themselves but more importantly, for the reader who
has hitherto not known a story of slavery such as the one in Morrison’s novel.
Being murdered and then reborn in the midst of a history that is already
fragmented for both character and reader, Beloved helps character and reader
alike tease apart history as well as attempt to piece it together. The cyclical
nature of the story and the way important details are revealed without respect
to chronology “marks, within the world of the story, the character’s inability
to become adequate to a historical sense of themselves and thus to trace the
social meanings behind their sufferings—a point made all too clearly when Paul
D becomes frustrated with Sethe’s inability to offer a linear, rational account
of herself’ (Spargo 114).
As the novel by Toni Morrison, “Beloved” continues, the
reader begins to gain a deeper understanding of how Beloved as a character
functions as a symbol rather than a mere character for the purpose of
progressing the plot of “Beloved”. Through her presence, Beloved acts as an
intervention as she forces characters to understand their history as
individuals, generations and communities and in this way she is able to force
out some of the symbolic meaning of community through her very presence in the
novel. Naturally, as a result of the complex and layered character of Beloved
the reader is part of this recreation of not only a history itself, but the
process by which history is formed. No characters in the novel have an identity
that is intact but through Beloved and her forcing of memory, these histories
begin to develop into identities that can offer some hope for the future.
The rebirth of Beloved as a grown woman is symbolic of the
way the past never dies and in fact, if left to its own devices, can grow
larger than life and more intense than the present. The fact that by the end of
the novel Sethe has grown weak while Beloved—a ghost of the past—has become
healthy, vibrant and even pregnant during the act of rebirth itself (the
epitome of health, vitality and productivity) is even more important because it
symbolizes the draining nature of history and the past if allowed to suckle the
life from the present during the symbolic process of Beloved’s rebirth. Even
when Beloved makes her first mysterious appearance outside of Sethe’s home, it
becomes immediately clear that she is being reborn and has come to address to
past in some way. She emerges, fully dressed, out of the water and Sethe goes
through a few moments where she cannot help the water flowing out of her, much
as though her water was breaking with the arrival of a child.
Although Beloved
looks like an adult woman after her rebirth, “she had new skin, lineless and
smooth, including the knuckles of her hands” (61) and is much like a newborn
child in many other ways as she spends her first several hours drinking and
then falling into a deep sleep. As she begins to recover, Beloved takes great
pleasure is sugar and when the narrator states, in one of the important quotes from
“Beloved” by Toni Morrison that, “it was as though sweet things were what she
was born for” (66) one cannot help but recall that Beloved was born in between
a period of slavery and freedom before her other symbolic rebirth. With this is
mind, this statement that she was living for sweet things can be interpreted as
her living for sweet freedom but since this was something that she would not be
able to have, in Sethe’s mind, her infant would be better off dead. In her
rebirth Beloved is finally able to enjoy the sweet things; not just the sugar
treats her mother brings her, but the freedom that Sethe so desperately wanted
for her—so desperately in fact, that she would rather murder her than allow her
to be subject to the horrors of slavery.
The inescapable and inevitable course of history is a main
issue in the novel and the character of Beloved both evokes and embodies the
most painful aspects of it while at the same time, albeit perhaps
inadvertently, causes characters to attempt to reconcile some of this baggage.
The many broken families, unknown and displaced mothers, fathers and siblings
that still perpetuates in the current generation of characters in Beloved can
be traced farther back to the original passage to America on the slave ships
where women like Nan, women who were there from the beginning of the
institution of slavery paid witness to the breaking apart of families and
constant sense of loss. Throughout the novel, Beloved as a complex character
with layered meaning acts as a sort of harbinger of a slow but intense
catharsis. By evoking painful memories and encouraging her mother to talk about
her life she extracts the horrible memories and purges them of at least some of
their toxicity or, at the very least, forces her mother to confront her pain,
which is something she is avoids for most of the novel.
There are large differences, both in terms of the products
of a character analysis of Denver and Beloved in the novel by Toni Morrison as
well as in terms of the plots of the sisters. Unlike with Denver who did not
make her mother discuss her memories since she “hated the stories her mother
told that did not concern herself, which is why Amy is all she ever asked
about. The rest was a gleaming, powerful world made more so by Denver’s absence
from it” (74) Beloved seems hell-bent on bringing forth her mother’s most
intense and often excruciating reminiscences, often by implicating symbols from
her past life such as the “diamond” earrings, which Sethe later wonders how she
knew anything about, even though at such a point in the novel, it is clear she
is not yet willing enough to allow herself to remember and connect her past to
her present. To draw forth her mother’s pain, Beloved incites her to tell
stories, which Sethe oddly is more than happy to do. Storytelling itself is a
symbol as well as a motif in “Beloved” by Toni Morrison as the act of
storytelling in the novel, as the narrator of Beloved states, “became a way to
feed her” (69) which surprised Sethe because “every mention of her past life
hurt. Everything in it was painful or lost.
Interestingly, as expressed in this important passage in
“Beloved” by Toni Morrison, she and Baby Suggs had agreed without saying so
that it would be unspeakable; to Denver’s inquiries Sethe gave short replies”
(69) and with Paul D. it was the same as with Baby Suggs. The past was simply
too toxic to remember but without it, the connections for the reader between
the interconnected and all-consuming damages of slavery and the dreadful impact
of slavery it has on multiple generations would not be so glaring. By the end
of this novel and strange resolution in terms of the expunging of years and
even generations of guilt and horror, the power of verbally exorcising these
atrocities on both a personal and historical level becomes clear.
In terms of this purging of pain through storytelling, there
are a number of instances where the past is directly confronted through words
and the process of healing begins. Also of importance, through this process of
storytelling the reader becomes aware of how history repeats itself and how the
wounds of slavery go back and continue to repeat again and again. In one
instance that offers one of the most potent examples of this, through the
gentle interrogation by the character of Beloved, Sethe recalls her mother.
More specifically, what she remembers about her mother and the other women who
nursed her and took care of her since her mother was either always working or
sleeping. What she does remember is so jarring that she gets very uncomfortable
and has to do something to keep her hands occupied because she as remembering
something she had forgotten she knew.
Something privately
shameful that had seeped into a slit in her mind right behind the slap on her
face and the circled cross” (73). It is one of the only interchanges Sethe
communicates about her own family and involves her mother telling her of a
cross mark on her skin and saying in one of the important quotes from “Beloved”
by Toni Morrison, “I am the only one who got this mark now. The rest dead. If
something happens to me and you can’t tell me by my face, you can know me by
this mark” (72). In an attempt to offer a profound reply, Sethe says she wants
a mark as well and her mother slaps her. This exchange holds a great deal of
symbolic importance to the novel itself and stands as a perfect example of the
perpetuating course of generations of slavery. By not completely understanding
the horrible significance of the mark and even more importantly, by asking for
one of her own, the young and ignorant Sethe was, in effect, asking her mother
for a repetition of the same history—asking to have a cruelly-won identifying
mark in the event that she might someday be so mangled by abuse that she could
not be recognized otherwise.
More generally, this is important because without the
“intervention” of Beloved, Sethe would have continued repeating the same course
of forgetfulness. She would have not remembered her mother or anything else
unpleasant for that matter. Beloved helps Sethe recreate her identity by
forcing her to confront her past. Without the presence of Beloved, even Denver
would not have a grasp on who she is. For instance, when her mother is praying
and she sees, as the narrator describes in one of the important quotations from
“Beloved” by Toni Morrison, “a white dress knelt down next to her nother and
had is sleeve around the mother’s waist. And it was the tender embrace of the
dress sleeve that made Denver remember the details of her birth” (35) it
becomes clear that all of the characters base their identity on memory but
without a proper starting point, identity for these characters does not
exist—even for a girl like Denver who never knew the identity-crushing
experiences of being a slave.
When Beloved is around, history and pain are always close to
surface but so too are the ways in which there seems to be a direct attempt at
reconciling past pain with the present moment; an attempt to make things right
again. At the beginning of part three of the novel when Sethe loses her job and
begins to weaken, it is although the three women are making up for the lost
freedom from all of the generations before them. They “ice-skated under a
star-loaded sky and drank sweet milk by the stove” (282) and more generally,
pushed out the painful world, leaving room for nothing for enjoyment; the same
kind that might have been enjoyed by people who have only known freedom and
ease their whole lives. Interestingly, this hedonistic streak leads to the
further weakening of Sethe and the subsequent fattening of Beloved who is
finally becoming a full-fledged entity—perhaps even more real than her
specter-like mother.
This is a cathartic and important passage from the novel
“Beloved” by Toni Morrison as well because it is when the past and present
finally begin to merge and characters who, because of their convoluted and
pained histories come together and emerge as whole people who understand their
past but look forward—characters such as Ella an Denver, most notably. Beloved
and her mother, both of whom are scarred by the past begin to become one
another and “Sometimes coming upon them making men and women cookies or tacking
scraps of cloth onto Baby Suggs’ old quilt it was difficult for Denver to tell
who was who” (283). As the battle between the two women is waged, however, it
is the complex character of Beloved who grows increasingly stronger and more
vital; almost as though she is sucking the life force from her mother. In doing
so, however, despite the ill effects it has on Sethe’s health, Beloved is
allowing Sethe to make peace with herself, even if it means giving herself
entirely to her children—something that Sethe firmly believes in anyway, even
if it involves the murder of a child to save it from the repetition of her own
grim past.
Through her embodiment of generations of pain, slavery and
the obliteration of personal identity, Beloved actually seems to help
characters in the novel find themselves among the wreckage of their history as
she herself is a character with a combination of identities.. For instance,
Denver, who is an intense and self-absorbed girl is nothing without Beloved by
her side at when she thinks Beloved leaves her, she cries because she suddenly
“has no self” and can feel her “thickness thinning, dissolving into nothing”
145). Beloved, through her knowledge of history and everyone’s past is able to
create identities where none were able to exist before, mostly because the pain
was far too great. When Beloved is around, the “tobacco-tin” box of Paul D’s
heart finally opens again around Beloved, Ella is able to understand her own
past pain in the context of another person, Stamp Paid begins to recognize that
despite his claim to be about no one other than himself begins to come into
question, Sethe is finally able to recall her past and piece together the
intense pain and even Denver is allowed to reclaim her own identity by the end.
While at this stage of the novel by Toni Morrison Beloved
represents symbolically one of the most horrifying aspects of the legacy of
slavery as she is a testament to the fact that a mother would rather commit the
worst crime against her in order to save her from such a horrible life, she
also represents the healing power of truth. Her presence makes characters in
the novel consider their histories, past pain, and even responsibilities in a
way that did not happen before. Before she arrived, history was cyclical; the
women were all living in a house haunted by an overwhelming sadness and angry
ghost and willing to do so because that was what they knew. Beloved’s presence
creates a new paradigm for the characters to exist in simply because through
her intervention via recognition of the past she is able to force out these
harmful patterns and create a new understanding of the possibility of the
present.
Beloved is a novel full of contradictions and impossibility
but this seems appropriate given the yet-unrealized impact slavery in all of
its horrifying detail. Beloved represents these generations of past and current
slaves in the novel by forcing them to remember that which “should not be
spoken of” in the community in “Beloved” by Toni Morrison that is trying to
move forward. The reader is not only a witness to the severe and often
crippling damage caused by generations of slavery but is implicated at the end
when, despite the absence of Beloved, as the narrator states in one of the
important passages from “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, “There is a loneliness that
roams. No rocking can hold it down. It’s alive, on its own. A dry and spreading
thing that makes the sound of one’s own feet going seem to come from a far-off
place” (323). This is clear reference to Beloved and history as it suggests
that history is not something that can be placated merely by rocking it or
soothing it. It must be something actively remembered, even if slavery is “not
a story to pass on” (324).
Neither the reader nor anyone left behind in the Cincinnati
community can forget since the footsteps of the past can always be heard
echoing. By the conclusion of the novel it is clear that Beloved’s presence as
someone who was present on the borderline between slavery and freedom and an
extractor of pain and memory is exactly the position the reader is meant to
occupy. Like Beloved herself who enacted an intervention through her invoking
of remembrances, even when “remembering seemed unwise” (324) the reader must
digest this story, despite how painful it is to read and consider, and should
interpret it not as a story of the supernatural or even as just a story at all,
but a testament to the potent nature of memory and history—especially a history
that is almost too difficult to accept or internalize.
In this strange and
gripping way, even though the novel has dealt with, in excruciating and
uncomfortable detail a horrible history filled with great pain and some of the
most unimaginably cruel and complex forms of degradation of an entire people,
the ubiquitous and rather bi-polar presence of this ghost character actually
creates fertile ground for healing and this completes the character of Beloved.
The extraction of memory and purging of history is almost like a “slash and
burn” tactic to clear new ground for building a future. In this way, the novel
can be seen as hopeful and oddly optimistic. By becoming the physical
manifestation of the past, Beloved forces all of the characters to consider
their identity within a painful history that worked so hard to obliterate
identity. She embodies the most dreadful aspects of a history of slavery,
especially in terms of what slavery did to destroy families and what might have
been normal relationships but she also embodies a youthful and childlike spirit
that yearns for happiness and the closeness with one’s identity that all human
beings deserve and desire.
Works Cited
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Vintage, 1987.
Spargo, R. Clifton. “Trauma and the Specters of Enslavement
in Morrison’s Beloved.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature
35.1 (2002), 113-131
