Beloved

In Toni Morrison’s Beloved the character of Beloved interrupts the plot suddenly and without warning. Just as in the opening chapters, the reader is thrown into unknown territory as “a fully dressed woman walked out of the water” (60). The reader is completely mystified just as the inhabitants of 124 are by this strange girl. Many clues in the text point to Beloved as the actual deceased daughter of Sethe, and with a mysterious power, Beloved is able to begin revealing the past that Sethe has tried so desperately to forget.

In many ways, though Beloved is described as a woman, she possesses many infantile –like qualities that suggest she is, in fact, the ghost of Sethe’s firstborn. Beloved can barely walk, “holding on to furniture, resting her head in the palm of her hand as though it was too heavy for a neck along” (67). Just like a baby, Beloved can’t walk properly or hold her head up. She also spends a significant amount of time sleeping, and has an intently strong attachment to Sethe (her mother). Besides her childlike tendencies, Beloved also seems to have a knowledge of Sethe’s past. She asks Sethe, “Where your diamonds?” (69) when there is no way she could truly have known Sethe ever had earrings.

Another quality in Beloved is a peculiar power to reveal the past. When Beloved asks Sethe to tell her stories of the past, instead of only feeling pain as before, Sethe “found herself wanting to, liking it” (69). Beloved even provokes this storytelling in Denver when she begins telling of her birth in elaborate detail. As Denver proceeds, the text describes her as “seeing it [the story] now and feeling it—through Beloved” (91). Beloved’s presence allows Denver to experience what her mother experienced. Overall, Beloved’s character acts as somewhat of a relief to Denver’s loneliness, and also as a window into both Sethe’s and a brief portion of Paul D’s past. She interrupts the seemingly happy future after the trip to the carnival, causes a wedge in relationships, and adds only more to the intriguing plot of Beloved.