Beloved, by Toni Morrison, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set during the Reconstruction period in the late 1800s. It tells the story of Sethe, a former slave who has escaped and settled near Cincinnati, Ohio. The book follows Sethe and her two children, Denver and Beloved, as they navigate their newfound freedom and grapple with the horrifying memories of Sethe’s past.
Sethe was born in Kentucky on the plantation of “Sweet Home”, a place of cruelty and abuse for African American slaves. She is whipped daily and forced to work long hours. Her mother is taken from her and she is taken from her husband Halle when she was pregnant with her second child. When she can take no more, Sethe and her children flee the plantation and the evils of slavery and arrive in the relative safety of Cincinnati, where they can live without the constraints of slavery.
Sethe and her family build a home in a modest cabin on the outskirts of the city, but the nightmares of her past haunt her; the presence of her old plantation master, “Schoolteacher” returns to threaten Sethe and her family. To protect herself and her children, Sethe makes the ultimate sacrifice. She attempts to kill her two children so they are not subjected to the horrors of slavery. Unfortunately, she only succeeds in killing her daughter and Sethe is much guilt-ridden from the experience.
The novel takes place 18 years after the incident, yet the past continues to haunt Sethe in the form of an ethereal presence which inhabits her home. Sethe eventually traces the presence to an escaped slave named Beloved, the daughter she killed, who she must learn to accept despite the guilt she feels from taking her life. Sethe and Denver, her surviving daughter, must learn to live together with this spirit and accept the pain of the past. As Sethe works through her guilty conscious, she bonds with Beloved and learns to accept Beloved, but also to forgive herself for her past actions. As the story progresses, Beloved and Denver learn more of the true horrors of slavery that Sethe and other African Americans endured during the Reconstruction.
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is an exploration of the lingering effects of slavery on the African American psyche and is a testament to all those who suffered and were scarred on the cusp of freedom. It is also a powerful love story, as Sethe and her two daughters relearn how to love, forgive and accept each other after experiencing tremendous trauma. With its vivid language and creative symbolism, Beloved remains an important and poignant work of American literature.
