Throughout Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, there are numerous reoccurring themes and symbols. The story is based on slavery and the aftermath of their horrible treatment, it also discusses the legend of the supernatural. It almost seems like the book itself is haunted. It is even named after the ghost portrayed in the story. To further the idea of hauntings, the characters are not only haunted by Beloved at 124, but they are haunted by their past, and the novel is not only about expelling a ghost from their home but trying to let go of the horrible things that had happened to them in the past.
Sethe is the most dramatically haunted during the book, both by her past and by her long-dead child Beloved. So many things had happened to her and because of her in the past, it’d be impossible to not be haunted by that. For starters, she was beaten so badly that her back has a permanent blossoming scar, one that she calls a “chokecherry tree. Trunk, branches, and even leaves. Tiny little chokecherry leaves. But that was eighteen years ago. Could have cherries too now for all I know” (16). The significance of this unclean scar on her back has much to do with the fact that it is just one extra reminder of her past that she cannot see but knows is always there. Also, the line “Could have cherries too now for all I know” may show that she understands that she is not only stuck with her past, but it is growing and feeding off of her.
There is little that Beloved doesn’t do to bring disorder to life in 124. She attempts to seize Sethe and claim her as her own. One way to look at Beloved is that of a vampire: sucking the life out of her and all close to her. Beloved sucks the life out of Denver with her insane jealousy of Denver and Sethe’s relationship. Also, the simple fact that Denver survived when Beloved did not. Beloved eventually seizes Sethe, making her her own before sucking the life out of her. “I am Beloved and she is mine” (210).
Beloved was able to play off of Sethe’s own haunting of her past to get what she wanted. Sethe’s judgment was obscured as she focused primarily on the daughter she murdered many years before. Beloved made demands, ridiculous ones honestly.
“Anything she wanted she got, and when Sethe ran out of things to give her, Beloved invented desire” (240). Sethe wound up quitting her job and neglected Denver completely to the point that she moved out of the house. And eventually neglected herself in the process. Diminishing down to bones. The analogy of a vampire could also be seen in the sense that Beloved drained Sethe’s physical body with her needs, wants and demands.
It also seems somewhat significant the word choices that the characters say when talking about the past. It’s clear they can’t forget, certainly will never forget their past and what had happened in that house. So rather than forget, they “disremember.” They push it to the back of their mind where they won’t think about it. But, will always be there, waiting for them to “re-memory” it. “According to Morrison, African Americans can, through storytelling, retrieve their ancestors from the ash heap of American “history.” This is the process she calls “giving blood to the scraps,” or what Karla F. C. Holloway, reviewing Beloved for Black American Literature Forum, calls “re-membering” history–the lifesaving antidote to a historical and historiographical dis-membering.”
Of course, the story is not all about the supernatural. Slavery also plays a large part in the story. As Sethe and Paul D reminisce over Sweet Home, Paul D told a story about Mister the rooster. The irony of the story was that Mister couldn’t get out of his egg himself. Paul D had to help him, once he was out, he ruled the farm. “Mister, he looked so…free. Better than me. Stronger, tougher. Son a bitch couldn’t even get out the shell by himself but he was still king and I was… (72)” Mister had all the freedom Paul D never thought he would have, and it was all thanks to him. He could save others but couldn’t save himself. That sentence also is applied to Sethe, as she murdered her own daughter, not to kill her, but to save her from a life of misery and torture.
Throughout the story, there are so many different anecdotes and metaphors, ways to interpret and ways to analyze, however, the main focus of the story always reads through clearly. Some may choose to read into the supernatural aspects while some read into the slavery aspect, but in the end, we all read the same story. And if Morrison really did intend on her readers to be haunted by the stories she tells, I think it’s safe to say she did her job well.
Time Will Tell 