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Major themes

Beloved is a novel based on the impact of slavery and of the emancipation of slaves on individual black people. The major theme of this novel is the relation between a community and one's identity. Why does the mother who murdered her daughter insist living in the haunted house where the crime is committed? What is the relation between Sweet Home, the black community and the haunted house? How do they contribute or undermine one's identity as an individual person? One cannot get away without confronting these questions after this novel. Here are some general themes of the novel:

Identity

Toni Morrison’s Beloved is the construction of one’s identity. The novel depicts the lives of several ex-slaves and exposes the oppression and devastating consequences slavery had, and continues to have, on their lives. Once free, the slaves attempt to reclaim their individual identities and collective humanity, but the effects of slavery still taint and haunt them, preventing them from being able to live in and enjoy the present or think about the future. Morrison states, “Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” (111). The novel illustrates the characters’ immense struggle to obtain a true sense of self and self-worth, a process that can only be successful if done both individually and on a collective level.

The former slaves try to integrate themselves into a present in which they are not welcomed. They feel subordinate to the white race and need unity to empower and inspire themselves to become autonomous, powerful individuals, able to acknowledge their own self worth. Morrison offers, “Nobody could make it alone… You could be lost forever, if there wasn’t nobody to show you the way.” (159). Denver is one example of this. Isolated in 124 her whole life, Beloved’s presence finally necessitates that she leaves the house and assimilate into the community. Upon doing so, she embarks upon the process of individuation, in which she establishes a sense of self and ultimately becomes a woman. While this process takes place individually, it requires the bonds of womanhood and encouragement of the community. Similarly, Sethe lacks a sense of individuality until the end of the novel. She lives in isolation, both physically from the community and psychologically from acknowledging any role other than that of mother. Morrison shows the painful, detrimental side of motherhood and its ability to stunt or even eliminate a woman’s individuation. Slavery denied Sethe the natural cycles of maternal bonding, causing her to take her role as mother to an extreme, even grotesque length. Sethe constructs the idea that her children are her best parts and it is from that idea that she creates her identity. Without the help of the community, Paul D, and finally Stamp Paid, Sethe would never be able to recognize herself as an entity separate from her children or acknowledge that her sole purpose in life was not to be a mother. At the end of the novel, Paul D tells Sethe, “'You your best thing Sethe, You are.'” (322). Morrison shows that one’s identity is crucial to her success and happiness in life and a person can only conceptualize herself as a separate entity through both collective and individual efforts.

Motherhood

The concept of motherhood within Beloved is as an overarching and overwhelming love that can conquer all, strongly typified within the novel by the character Sethe, whose very name is the feminine of "Seth"- the Biblical 'father of the world'. This can also be seen within Morrison's other works and has led to her sometimes being cited as a feminist writer. Further, Sethe's escape from the slave plantation (ironically named 'Sweet Home') stems from her desire to keep the "mother of her children alive" and not from any personal survival instinct. Sethe's maternal instincts almost lead to her own destruction. Readers can assume the interpretation that Beloved is a wrathful character looking to wreak revenge on Sethe for killing her, despite the fact that the murder was, in Sethe's mind, an entirely loving act. Sethe's guilt at Beloved's death means that she is willing to "give up her life, every minute, hour and second of it, to take back just one of Beloved's tears". The strength of her love leads her almost to the point of death as she allows Beloved complete freedom to destroy her household and relationships; the roles of mother and daughter are completely reversed. "Was it past bedtime, the light no good for sewing? Beloved didn't move, said, 'Do it', and Sethe complied".

History

Toni Morrison wrote Beloved on a foundation of historical events. The most significant event within the novel—the "Misery", or Sethe's murder of Beloved—is based on the 1856 murder by Margaret Garner of her children to prevent them from being recaptured and taken back into slavery with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Morrison admits to "an obsession" with this account after she discovered it while helping edit a scrapbook on black history. The novel itself can be seen as the reworking of fact into something with a very emotional central message. History is woven throughout the novel. The Middle Passage is referenced along with the Underground Railway in many parts of the novel; the 'Sixty Million and More' to whom Morrison dedicates the novel may refer to the many who died during the Middle Passage. The entire concept of slavery described in the novel i.e. Paul D's confinement in Georgia, ideas such as the "bit" and the legislature described are all based on history.

Beloved's appearance reawakens memories of slavery among the other characters, and they are forced to deal with their pasts instead of trying to repress their memories. Reincarnation and rebirth are also themes in this novel.

Manhood

The only significantly developed male character is Paul D, described as "the kind of man who could walk into a house and make the women cry. Because with him, in his presence, they could cry and tell him things they only told each other". He is, however, emotionally crippled. During his service in a chain-gang, his hands uncontrollably shake until he can learn to trap his emotions and lock them away. It takes Beloved and her audacious seduction to release him and to free the "red heart" he's imprisoned in the "rusted tobacco tin" of his memories. Paul D is the only male character against whom the women's strengths are tested and contrasted. Nearly all the other men in the story are oppressors or comparatively lightly sketched. Paul D cannot cope with Sethe's murder of her children—even though he knows it was an extreme act of love—and leaves, but returns to "put his story next to hers", a display of his courage and mature love, if crippled by his slavery ordeal. Leaving the readers without ultimate answers, Toni Morrison concludes on a hopeful note, as Paul D convinces Sethe that she herself is her own "best thing."

Mother-daughter relationships

The maternal bonds that connect Sethe to her children inhibit her own individuation and prevent the development of her self. Sethe develops a dangerous maternal passion that results in the murder of one daughter, her own “best self,” and the estrangement of the surviving daughter from the black community, both in an attempt to salvage her “fantasy of the future,” her children, from a life in slavery. However, Sethe fails to recognize her daughter Denver’s need for interaction with this community in order to enter into womanhood. Denver finally succeeds at the end of the novel in establishing her own self and embarking on her individuation with the help of Beloved. Contrary to Denver, Sethe only reaches individuation after Beloved’s exorcism, at which point Sethe can fully accept the first relationship that is completely “for her,” her relationship with Paul D. This relationship relieves Sethe from the ensuing destruction of her self that resulted from the maternal bonds controlling her life.^[4] Beloved and Sethe are both very much emotionally impaired as a result of Sethe’s previous enslavement. Slavery creates a situation where a mother is separated from her child, which has devastating consequences for both parties. Often, mothers do not know themselves to be anything except a mother, so when they are unable to provide maternal care for their children, or their children are taken away from them, they feel a lost sense of self. Similarly, when a child is separated from his or her mother, he or she loses the familial identity associated with mother-child relationships. Sethe was never able to see her mother’s true face (because her smile was distorted from having spent too much time “with the bit”) so she wasn’t able to connect with her own mother, and therefore does not know how to connect to her own children, even though she longs to. Furthermore, the earliest need a child has is related to the mother: the baby needs milk from the mother. Sethe is traumatized by the experience of having her milk stolen because it means she cannot form the symbolic bond between herself and her daughter.^[5]

Psychological impact of slavery

Because of the painful nature of the experiences of slavery, most slaves repressed these memories in an attempt to leave behind a horrific past. This repression and dissociation from the past causes a fragmentation of the self and a loss of true identity. Sethe, Paul D. and Denver all experience this loss of self, which could only be remedied by the acceptance of the past and the memory of their original identities. In a way Beloved serves to open these characters up to their repressed memories, eventually causing the reintegration of their selves. ^[6] Slavery splits a person into a fragmented figure. The identity, consisting of painful memories and unspeakable past, denied and kept at bay, becomes a ‘self that is no self.’ To heal and humanise, one must constitute it in a language, reorganize the painful events and retell the painful memories. As a result of suffering, the ‘self’, subject to a violent practice of making and unmaking, once acknowledged by an audience becomes real. Sethe, Paul D, and Baby Suggs who all fall short of such realization, are unable to ‘remake’ their ‘selves’ by trying to keep their pasts at bay. The 'self' is located in a word, defined by others. The power lies in the audience, or more precisely, in the word - once the word changes, so does the identity. All of the characters in Beloved face the challenge of an unmade 'self', composed of their 'rememories' and defined by perceptions and language. The barrier that keeps them from 'remaking' of the 'self' is the desire for an 'uncomplicated past' and the fear that remembering will lead them to 'a place they couldn't get back from'.^[7]