Beloved by Toni Morrison
"Beloved" is a novel by Toni Morrison set in the aftermath of the American Civil War, centering on the life of Sethe, an escaped enslaved woman who grapples with the haunting memories of her traumatic past. The story begins in 1848 when Sethe is sold to a plantation in Kentucky called Sweet Home, where she marries Halle, another enslaved man. After the death of her master and the arrival of a cruel overseer, Sethe attempts to escape with her children to join her freed mother-in-law in Cincinnati. Tragically, she takes drastic measures to protect her children from a return to slavery, which leads to the death of her infant daughter, Beloved.
The narrative explores themes of motherhood, memory, and the psychological scars left by slavery. Sethe's life is further complicated when a mysterious young woman, who calls herself Beloved, appears and disrupts her fragile family dynamic. This figure is believed to embody the spirit of Sethe's deceased child, leading to an intense and consuming relationship. As Sethe becomes increasingly obsessed with Beloved, she neglects her surviving daughter, Denver, and faces the community’s intervention when her behavior spirals out of control. Ultimately, "Beloved" delves into the complexities of grief, identity, and the struggle for healing in the wake of historical trauma.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
First published: 1987
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of plot: Nineteenth century
Locale: Cincinnati, Ohio
Principal characters
Sethe , a former slaveBeloved , her first daughterDenver , her second daughterHalle Suggs , her deceased husbandBaby Suggs , her mother-in-lawPaul D Garner , her loverHoward andBuglar , her sons
The Story
In 1848, at the age of thirteen, Sethe is sold to Mr. Garner and his wife Lillian, who run a plantation in northern Kentucky called Sweet Home. Intended to replace Baby Suggs, whose freedom was purchased by her son Halle by renting out his labor on Sundays, Sethe marries Halle, one of five male slaves (the “Sweet Home men”) owned by the Garners, in 1849. Each of the other Sweet Home men—Paul A Garner, Paul D Garner, Paul F Garner, and Sixo—wants Sethe for himself, but each accepts her choice and respects her position as Halle’s wife.
Mr. Garner dies in 1853, and his financially strapped, cancer-ridden widow sells Paul F and then brings her cruel brother-in-law, “schoolteacher,” and his equally cruel nephews to Sweet Home as overseers. Fearful that schoolteacher might sell them all, the remaining Sweet Home slaves begin planning an escape in 1855. Before the plan can be effected, the pregnant Sethe is attacked by schoolteacher’s two nephews. One holds her down while the other sucks the milk from her breasts. Schoolteacher watches and takes notes. Unknown to Sethe, her helpless husband sees the entire “mammary rape” from the hayloft, and the event destroys his sanity. Determined to escape, Sethe sends her three children (Howard, age five; Buglar, age four; and Beloved, age nine months) to join the emancipated Baby Suggs in Cincinnati, planning to follow the next day. The four Sweet Home men fail to escape. Sixo is captured and burned alive, Paul A is hanged, Paul D is sold, and the broken Halle, who dies soon after, loses the will to escape. Only Sethe stumbles into the woods toward freedom.
Sethe nearly dies of exposure, but she is found by a runaway white girl, Amy Denver, who doctors her torn feet and helps her to the Ohio River, where they find an abandoned, leaking boat. Before they can cross, Sethe’s water breaks and with Amy as midwife she gives birth prematurely to her second daughter, Denver, in the nearly swamped boat. Amy, also on the run, abandons Sethe and Denver. Stamp Paid, a black riverman, finds mother and daughter and ferries them across the Ohio to the Bodwins, Quaker conductors on the Underground Railroad. The Bodwins deliver Sethe and Denver to Baby Suggs’s house on Bluestone Road outside Cincinnati, where Sethe is reunited with Howard, Buglar, and Beloved.
Sethe enjoys twenty-eight glorious days of freedom before the slave catchers track her down. When the slave catchers approach, Sethe tries to kill her children rather than allow them to be returned to slavery. Three miraculously survive, but Beloved dies. Sethe is arrested and sentenced to hang, but the Bodwins obtain a pardon for her and she is allowed to return to Bluestone Road. The ghost of the murdered Beloved also returns and haunts the house for eighteen years, during which it keeps away all visitors, drives away Howard and Buglar in 1865, and breaks the spirit of Baby Suggs, who takes to her bed and dies just months before the American Civil War ends. Paul D, after escaping from a Georgia chain gang and wandering through much of the eastern United States, finds Sethe on Bluestone Road in 1873. He drives out the ghost and moves in with Sethe.
Just as Paul D, Sethe, and Denver begin to bond into a family, a young black woman, calling herself Beloved, appears from nowhere, seeking sanctuary. Sethe takes her in, and Beloved begins disrupting the new family by insinuating herself into the affections of Sethe and Denver and seducing Paul D. In 1874, Stamp Paid tells Paul D about Sethe’s murder of her child nineteen years before, and Paul D leaves Sethe. Shunned by all as they had been since the murder in 1855, Sethe and Denver form a family with Beloved.
The following year Sethe comes to believe that Beloved is her own murdered child and gradually becomes obsessed with her, neglecting Denver as she tries desperately to make up for the murder. The diabolical Beloved soon consumes Sethe entirely. Sethe loses her job, and the starving Denver goes begging for work. Through Denver the community learns of Beloved’s presence and determines to help the Bodwins, who had rescued Sethe in 1855, rescue Denver from Sethe and Beloved. The women of the community begin praying outside the house just as the elderly Mr. Bodwin arrives for Denver. The deranged Sethe, mistaking Mr. Bodwin for a slave catcher, tries to stab him with an ice pick. Denver and the other women stop her, and Beloved disappears. Broken in spirit by losing Beloved again, the twice-bereaved Sethe takes to her bed as the broken Baby Suggs had done in 1865. At the end of the novel Paul D, who has loved Sethe since she first arrived at Sweet Home twenty-five years before, returns to her. He refuses to let Sethe die and begins trying to heal her wounded heart.
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