Reflection Of Toni Morrison's Beloved

The novel Beloved, written in 1987, tells the life story of Sethe, her daughter Denver, and old friend Paul D, as her murdered daughter, Beloved, returns in the flesh. The story of Sethe’s past is revealed to the reader in fragments that build off of one another. The novels present tense is based a few years after the abolishment of slavery. Underneath the fiction involved with Sethe’s story, the novel gives a realistic glimpse into the lives of an African American at the time. Toni Morrison shows the dynamic of how African American communities express their voice and relationships through suffering in a family, town, and an overall slavery bases. All three of these are connected through the character Beloved.

It was dangerous for an African

Elizabeth Kella suggests that the community perceives Baby Suggs ' celebration as simply giving too much and therefore "offend[ing] them by excess" (Kella 138). This in turn created the domino effect of them first turning their heads when the “four horsemen” came into town looking for Sethe and her family. Second, them shunning Sethe and her family after the murder had been committed. By not warning Sethe about the White men coming the community fails to perform its role as a support for all the participating individuals. A community is supposed to help one another not leave eachother out. Due to the people “perceiving Sethe as a monster for having killed her child, the community projected its own guilt for its complicity in that act" (Winsbro 152). The refusal to publically own up to their guilt the people hold for not warning Sethe, creates a separation between Sethe and everyone. This in turn adds to shunning created by the fear the community holds against her. After many years of alienating Sethe’s family the community was informed of the reasoning behind Sethe’s action. They then understood why Sethe had killed her daughter. When news of Beloved’s return had spread, it was theorized that Sethe’s crime had comeback for her, the town women banned together to help save Sethe. Morrison involves the women of the community in the ridding of Beloved because they too have had to commit horrendous acts in their times as slaves. Mahboobeh Khaleghi explained that by the community banning together and “exorcising Beloved, the community exorcises the past” (Khaleghi 479). The involvement of Beloved in the communities lives shows how connected they were and how one family 's problem could result in everyone 's