Beloved by Toni Morrison

The characters in Beloved, particularly Sethe and Paul D, are both dehumanized by
white people’s inhumanity during their slavery experiences; however, their responses to the
experience differ due to their different roles. Sethe was stuck in the past because the ghost of
the dead baby in the house represented Sethe’s past life, which she couldn’t forget. She was as
accepting of the ghost as she was of the past. Sethe, on the other hand, began to see the future
after she was confronted by her dead baby in the form of a woman who came to her house.
Sethe could only see the future if she could explain why she had murdered her own daughter.

Furthermore, Sethe was isolated by the black community as a result of something she
did that the community deemed to be wrong. Because it includes sexism, classism, and racism,
black feminism will be the lens through which the oppression of women of color will be
examined. Because the novel’s female characters are so prominent, a black feminist approach
should be very effective in showing how the female characters deal with the past and live with
it in the present, what motherhood means to them, and how much the past influences the
female characters that live in the present.

The novel’s conclusion reveals not only the black community’s forgiveness and
acceptance of Sethe’s decision (to kill her daughter), but also the white community’s
acceptance of Denver to work for them (the Bodwins). This reconciliation demonstrates the
courage and willingness to let go of the past in order to live side by side in peace and move
forward together in the future. The main plot of Beloved, according to Martha Bayles, can be
seen as a variation on the same story: a slave commits a crime, but it’s not just a crime because
it was committed by a slave. The system, not the slave, is unjustly condemned for a deed that,
to some extent, would have a different meaning if committed in freedom; a similar moral
adjustment must be made in judging the actions.