Beloved

Full title   Beloved

Author  Toni Morrison

Type of work  Novel

Genre  Historical fiction; ghost story

Language  English

Time and place written  The 1980s in Albany, New York

Date of first publication  1987

Publisher  Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Narrator   Beloved’s primary narrator is anonymous and omniscient. However, in parts of the book, the narration is taken over by the characters themselves. Chapters 20 through 23, for example, consist of three monologues and a chorus. At other points in the book, the characters act as visiting narrators of a sort, who relate and comment on events.

Point of view  The anonymous narrator of Beloved speaks in the third person and withholds judgment on the actions described. When the characters serve as narrators, they generally use the first person and openly express their personal opinions.

Tone  The text’s tone changes from character to character and reflects their varying, usually explicit attitudes toward the events. The primary “narrator” regards the characters and their actions with a mixture of mournfulness, regret, and awe.

Tense   Beloved fluctuates in tense between the immediate and distant pasts. It also includes occasional, jarring transitions to the present tense.

Setting (time)  1873, with frequent flashbacks to the early 1850s

Setting (place)  Cincinnati, Ohio; flashbacks to Sweet Home plantation in Kentucky and prison in Alfred, Georgia

Protagonist  Sethe is the primary protagonist, but Denver also drives much of the plot’s action, especially in Part Three.

Major conflict  Having survived a traumatic escape from slavery, Sethe has killed her older daughter in a mad attempt to keep her from being taken back to the South by her old master. A mysterious figure now appears at Sethe’s home, calling herself by the name on the dead daughter’s tombstone.

Rising action  A ghost has haunted Sethe and Denver’s house for several years. Paul D arrives and chases the ghost away. Beloved appears at the house soon after and causes memories to surface in Sethe, Denver, and Paul D.

Climax  Because the novel follows two different stories, one told through flashbacks and one that is taking place in the novel’s present, there are two different climaxes. The climax of the flashback plot occurs near the end of Part One in Chapter 16, when the text finally reveals the circumstances of Sethe’s daughter’s death: eighteen years ago, Sethe attempted to murder all her children when she refused to hand them over to schoolteacher to endure a life of slavery. Only her elder daughter died. The second climax occurs at the end of the novel, during the “exorcism” of Beloved, who seems to be the ghost of the daughter Sethe murdered. In an echo of the first climax, Sethe mistakes Mr. Bodwin, her family’s benefactor, for schoolteacher and tries to kill him with an ice pick.

Falling action  Beloved leaves 124 forever, Denver is preparing to go to college, and Paul D returns to Sethe, who has been spending her days in Baby Suggs’s bed.

Themes  Slavery’s destruction of identity; the importance of community solidarity; the powers and limits of language

Motifs  The supernatural; allusions to Christianity

Symbols  The color red; trees; the tin tobacco box

Foreshadowing  Morrison unfolds the story in a circular, elusive way, making use of a device akin to, but more complex than, foreshadowing. The narrative makes indirect or incomplete allusions to events that are picked up and developed further at later points in the novel. For example, the death of Sethe’s daughter is mentioned repeatedly from the beginning of the novel, but only in Chapter 18 does the complete story unfold.