“Beloved” by Toni Morrison : The Symbolic Meaning of the Character of Beloved ( Pages 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 )

 

Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include :Character Analysis of Beloved in the Novel by Toni Morrison  • Jazz by Toni Morrison : The Symbolic Significance of the Title  •  Slavery in America's South : Implications and Effects

 

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.

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