the journey, which takes Sethe from Sweet Home to Baby Suggs’s home, across the river from Kentucky on the southern rim of Ohio. The physical journey, made arduous by a mutilated back, swollen feet, and a premature infant, hardly compares with the spiritual journey, which introduces Sethe to freedom and […]
Read more Critical Essays Form in BelovedCritical Essays Beloved and Its Forerunners
As in Henry James’s Turn of the Screw, her characters in Beloved confront an elusive ghost, which deprives Sethe of the ability to nest and to know contentment. Sharing an obsession with social injustice with John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, Morrison’s novel recreates an emotional landscape that moves beyond historic […]
Read more Critical Essays Beloved and Its ForerunnersToni Morrison Biography
Although reared in the North, Toni Morrison is the genetic and historical offspring of southern traditions. These traditions derive from her maternal grandfather, a carpenter and farmer who, seeing no chance for advancement in Kentucky’s racism and poverty, moved his family to Ohio. Morrison’s father, sharecropper George Wofford, had similar […]
Read more Toni Morrison BiographyCharacter Analysis Paul D
Because he came from her past and shares some of the experiences that haunt her, Sethe can open herself up to Paul D and find some relief in sharing the burden of her memories. Sethe is drawn to the promise of happiness that she finds with Paul D, but Beloved’s […]
Read more Character Analysis Paul DCharacter Analysis Baby Suggs
When the black community betrays her and doesn’t warn her or Sethe about the schoolteacher’s approach, Baby Suggs loses her faith in people. She withdraws from the community into an internal world of colors and introspection. Her withdrawal allows Sethe to withdraw as well, leading to a long estrangement with […]
Read more Character Analysis Baby SuggsCharacter Analysis Denver
With the loss of her brothers and grandmother, Denver becomes increasingly isolated and self-centered. Even as a young adult, her attitude is still very childlike; for instance, she behaves rudely when Paul D arrives and wants only to hear stories about herself. Denver’s initial immaturity demonstrates how Sethe’s inability to […]
Read more Character Analysis DenverCharacter Analysis Beloved
Because Sethe’s mother came from Africa, the experience that Beloved remembers is also Sethe’s mother’s experience. In a sense, Beloved is not only Sethe’s daughter but her mother as well. Because Beloved is supernatural and represents the spirit of multiple people, Morrison doesn’t develop her character as an individual. Beloved […]
Read more Character Analysis BelovedCharacter Analysis Sethe
Much of Sethe’s internal struggle also derives from her ambiguous relationship with her mother. Because of the long hours her mother worked, Sethe barely knew her. However, through Nan she knows that she was the product of a loving union. Of all her mother’s children, Sethe was the only one […]
Read more Character Analysis SetheSummary and Analysis Part 3: Chapter 28
Analysis Morrison, who has carried ghost conventions far past their gothic origins, ends her story with a well-earned and gratifying peace. Some of Beloved’s yearnings remain distant, particularly “the underwater face she needed,” a reference to her lack of personhood, which was cut off in its formative stage. The neighbors […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 3: Chapter 28Summary and Analysis Part 3: Chapter 27
While walking to work, Paul D passes Denver as she leaves the Bodwins’ house and heads toward the shirt factory to apply for a job. More confident, sophisticated, and mature than Paul D remembers her, Denver is unable to answer questions about Beloved’s identity and sidesteps Paul D’s surmise. Again […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 3: Chapter 27