Jimmeria Jones
Professor Jenkins
English 1102
December 9, 2008

Beloved: Memories, Manifestation, and Malice

“A fully dressed woman walked out of the water” …“nobody saw her emerge or came accidentally by” (53). In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Beloved appears out of nowhere like a lost soul stumbling and stammering until she made her way to her predisposed destination the property of I24. The moment that Sethe see’s Beloved her bladder fills to capacity, “She never made the outhouse. Right in front of the door she had to lift her skirts, and the water she voided was endless” (54). This to me symbolized a woman’s water breaking before she gives birth; it is evident to me that Beloved is a manifestation and representation of Sethe’s inner most thoughts, feelings, secrets, and past traumatic experiences and Beloved has returned to shed light on Sethe’s past, present, and future self through painful memories. In a conversation about Beloved Morrison states, “she is a spirit on one hand, literally she is what sethe thinks she is, her child returned to her from the dead” (Darling 247). Sethe feels immediately drawn to Beloved after she states her name; “Sethe was deeply touched by her sweet name; the remembrance of glittering headstone made her feel especially kindly toward her” (56). There are many instances where Beloved without knowing causes Sethe to remember things from her past that she doesn’t want to and even thought she had forgotten. In an essay by Pamela E. Barnett she states that significantly Sethe is flooded with these memories in response to questions from her own daughter, Beloved, who wants to know everything in Sethe’s memory and actually feeds and fattens on these stories (Barnett 62). “It became a way to feed her… Sethe learned the profound satisfaction Beloved got from storytelling. It amazed Sethe (as much as it pleased Beloved) because every mention of her past life hurt” (62). Beloved is so infatuated with Sethe in such a way that it seems almost odd for a complete stranger to have this much mental and emotional attachment towards one human begin without there begin some form of a family or spiritual connection Beloved watches and follows Sethe in an haunting way just like the baby ghost; …“and Beloved could not take her eyes off Sethe…Sethe was licked, tasted, eaten by Beloved’s eyes. Like a familiar, she hovered, never leaving the room Sethe was in unless told to do so” (61). “But what starts out as a child’s love and hunger for her mother from whom she has long been separated turns into a wish to own Sethe, to posses her, to merge with her and be her”…“just as the disembodied baby ghost Beloved hauntingly possessed Sethe, so the flesh-and-blood adolescent Beloved tries to own and dominate her”. “Sethe is haunted by the girl’s presence as she was by her absence because possession of any kind involving human begins is destructive” (Barnett 62). Sethe’s memory is something that is reoccurring throughout Beloved, Beloved is so inquisitive to the point that it forces Sethe to remember painful instances from her past. “She had to do something with her hands because she was remembering something she had forgotten she knew. Something privately shameful that had seeped into a slit in her mind right behind the slap on her face and the circled cross” (66). In a conversation with Toni Morrison Angels Carabi, states “Memory has a dual function. On the one hand, to remember painful periods generates suffering, but on the other hand, remembering has a healing quality; suffering provides information and ultimately offers self-knowledge.” Morrison replies by saying “…part of you is dead if you don’t remember, part of your mind is vacant, so it is not complete. So the pain is worth it because the healing is great” (Angels Carabi 38).

Because Beloved asked so many personal questions and knew a lot of detailed things about Sethe’s past life stimulated speculation and jealously from Denver, Sethe’s actual daughter. “Beloved took every opportunity to ask some funny question and get sethe going. Denver noticed how greedy she was to hear Sethe talk. Now she noticed something more. The questions Beloved asked: “Where your diamonds?” “Your woman she never fix up your hair?” And most perplexing: Tell me your earrings. How did she know?”(67). After Beloved was choking at the dinner table Denver offered Beloved to sleep in her room once in the room Denver begins to question Beloved about her own past in a less confrontational way unlike Paul D who mostly implied and accused instead of asking and understanding. “Looking straight at it she whispered” (79). I believe that it is by no mistake that Morrison uses the word “it” to describe Beloved because that is what she was an “it” an embodiment of many things. “Why you call yourself beloved?” Beloved closes her eyes and. “In the dark my name is beloved…“What did you come back for?” Beloved smiled “To see her face.” “Ma’am’s? Sethe?” “Yes, Sethe” (79). Denver is a little hurt to know that Beloved is not specifically there for her but pleased to know that this is her sister and she wants Beloved to keep this a secret from Sethe which upsets Beloved. “Don’t tell her. Don’t let Ma’am know who you are. Please, you hear?” “Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t you ever tell me what to do.” “She is the one. She is the one I need. You can go but she is the one I have to have” (80). When Beloved says this it is very alarming because she intends to continue to hold Sethe captive in her mind, body, and home just as she did as the baby ghost, Beloved has a way of leaching on to Sethe and sucking her dry of all of her energy everything. In an essay by Elizabeth B. House she states, “Beloved ingests while Sethe is drained…Beloved sucks Sethe dry. Although Sethe is initially thrilled to realize that Beloved is her dead daughter returned, she and Beloved soon enter into a struggle for survival, rationing their strength to fight each other a struggle that Beloved seems to win as Sethe grows so thin that all the flesh between her forefinger and thumb fades, Beloved eats all the best food and grows a basket-fat stomach. Beloved animates her ghostly flesh with food but also Sethe’s life: Beloved [eats] up [Sethe’s] life. [takes] it, swells up with it, grows taller on it” (House 78). Sethe always sensed things from Beloved that made her uncomfortable or that she felt was not appropriate during a time when Sethe, Denver, and Beloved where laying out in the clearing and Beloved kissed Sethe and this prompt her to gather the girls and leave immediately, “Then Sethe, grabbing Beloved’s hair and blinking rapidly, separated herself. She later believed that it was because the girl’s breath was exactly like new milk than she said to her, stern and frowning. “You to old for that” (103). “Like a faint smell of burning that disappears… the suspicion that the girl’s touch was also exactly like the baby’s ghost dissipated” (104). “When Beloved kisses Sethe’s neck in the clearing, Sethe is transfixed but suddenly becomes aware that the act is inappropriate… “This haunting is marked by an infantile sexual desire for the mother” (House 79). Beloved and Sethe began to grow weary and apart from one another they began to argue, and bicker Beloved started to blame Sethe for her the misfortunes in both of their lives, Beloved accuses Sethe for leaving her behind and not loving her, and Beloved also refuses to forgive Sethe for what she did to her but Beloved will not forgive her at all. “Beloved accused her of leaving her behind and not begin nice to her, not smiling at her she said they were the same, had the same face, how could she have left her? And Sethe cried, saying she never did, or meant to that she had to get them out…“Beloved wasn’t interested she said when she cried there was no one… “Sethe pleaded for forgiveness, counting, listing her reasons again and again: that Beloved was more important meant more to her than her own life, that she would trade places any day… “That before leaving Sweet Home Beloved slept every night on her chest or curled on her back, Beloved denied it. Sethe never came to her, never said a word to her … “Or even looked her way before running away from her” (254). In an essay by Deborah Horvitz she writes “ Certainly one reason Beloved comes back is to pass judgment on Sethe. When Sethe realizes that Beloved is the ghost of her third child, she wants desperately for the girl to understand that she tried to kill her babies so that they would be protected from captivity forever. Sethe assumes Beloved will forgive her. She does not. For Beloved, her mother’s protection became the act of possession that led to her own death, which was murder. Beloved becomes mean-spirited and exploits her mother’s pain. Sethe gives Beloved story after story of her love and devotion to her. She tells her how…it pained her to see her bitten by a mosquito, and how she would trade her own life for Beloved’s”(Horvitz).
“They grew tired, and even Beloved, who was getting bigger, seemed nevertheless as exhausted as they were. In any case she substituted a snarl or a tooth-suck for waving a poker around and I24 was quiet. Listless and sleepy with hunger…Denver saw Sethe’s eyes bright but dead, alert but vacant, paying attention to everything about Beloved”(255). Towards the end of the narrative Denver begins to understand and realize that Beloved is not there for a selfish reason of her own (just because she is her sister) but more of a meaningful and healing purpose for Beloved, herself, and Sethe. Denver would never leave the porch and explore the world but once she saw that her mother had fallen ill because of starvation, stress, and love she does because she has to get help. I feel Beloved was manifested and able to be seen by those around her because she represented years of slavery, death, abolishment, captivity on the worse end not only was she Sethe’s child that she murdered she was Beloved someone who is loved very much and at times to much to point that Sethe is will to succumb to the enslaved physical, mental, and emotional state of mind and die just so that Beloved won‘t leave her again. “Denver thought she understood the connection between her mother and Beloved: Sethe was trying to make up for the handsaw and Beloved was making her pay for it. But there will never be an end to that and seeing her mother diminished shamed and infuriated her. Yet she knew Sethe’s greatest fear was the same one Denver had in the beginning that Beloved might leave”(263). “…Something healing has happened Sethe’s narrative ends with her considering the possibility that she could be her own “best thing.” “Denver has left the front porch feeling less afraid and more sure of herself. Now that Beloved is gone there is the feeling that perhaps Sethe can find happiness with Paul D., who “wants to put his story next to hers.” As the embodiment of Sethe’s memories, the ghost Beloved enabled her to remember and tell the story of her past, and in so doing shows that between women words used to make and share a story and have the power to heal”(Horvitz,9).

Works Cited

Carabi, Angels. Toni Morrison, Interview., Belles Letters pg.38

Deborah Horvitz. “Nameless Ghosts: Possession and Dispossession in Beloved.” Studied in American fiction, vol.17, No.2, Autumn, 1989, pp. 157-67 Literature Resource Center. Gale group Databases

Plasa, Carl, Comp. Toni Morrison Beloved. New York: Columbia University Press,1998.
Horvitz, Deborah., Elizabeth B. House and Pamela E. Barnett. My Girl Come Home. New York: Icon, 1998

Taylor-Guthrie, Danille. Conversation with Toni Morrison. Jackson: The University Press Of Mississippi, 1994 Darling, Marsha. In The Realm of Responsibility: A conversation with Toni Morrison. From the Women’s Review of Books,1988

Toni Morrison. Beloved. New York: Plume, 1987

Jones