“You think she sure ‘nough your sister?”…“At times. At times I think she was–more” (314). In Beloved the eponymous character exhibits characteristics which lend credence to the interpretation of her being the ghost of Sethe’s murdered child – this includes things such as sharing the name of the baby’s tombstone, being the same age as the baby had it been alive, and knowing certain details from Sethe’s past as a slave. In this essay I will argue that Beloved’s appearance in a physical form can be interpreted to signify the repressed memories of slavery of each of the characters, which allows for their personal and emotional growth. This is supported through the central idea of re-memory.
To Sethe, re-memory is not simply remembering something but instead is a physical presence which always ‘exists’ in the world. Sethe states “I mean, even if I don’t think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened” (43) – the choice of including place in the description of re-memory enables the connection between the place where Sethe killed her child being the same place as where she currently lives. Thus, Beloved’s appearance as a ghost at 124 is a living re-memory that has returned to haunt Sethe, Denver and Paul D. Beloved consequently
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Instead of being an allegory for the repressed memories of slavery in the form of Sethe’s murdered child, Beloved can be viewed as an allegory for all the slaves, “Sixty million and more”, who suffered through slavery in America. The use of the epistrophe at the end of the novel, “It was not a story to pass on…It was not a story to pass on…This is not a story to pass on” (323-4) for a story that has already been passed on to the reader signifies that it is not simply ‘A’ story to pass on but rather multiple stories that live on in