Agnes Nantista
29 October 2015
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a complex interpretation of the legacy of slavery in the form of a novel; it delves into family life and the struggle of transitioning from slavery to freedom. One major theme in Beloved, shown through the main character’s development, is that when love is too strong, it becomes a self-enveloping, blinding force.
The main character, Sethe is an escaped slave who has endured a torturous life, and wishes to protect her children from being subjected to slavery at any means--even by taking their lives. The murder of baby Beloved, an act of extreme love for Beloved by Sethe in the face of her former owner, catalyzes the novel’s plot. Sethe is resolute in her decision to kill Beloved, while everyone else in her family, the townsfolk, and her owner are horrified by the odious act. Through this act, Sethe becomes isolated from her community--a situation she is apathetic towards--even though inclusion in community is crucial to Sethe’s retainment of sanity, as we observe later in the novel.
The significance of community--nuclear or larger--is highlighted in Philip Page’s analysis of Beloved: “Circularity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved,” in which he calls communities metaphoric circles that one joins or leaves. The motif of circles and circle metaphors is evident in Beloved as things that can protect or constrict. Sethe’s family circle gradually shrinks as members die, leave, or become neglected. Sethe’s vision of family to shrinks too; however, the amount of love she has, which is “‘too thick’” (193), does not, and she smothers Beloved’s reincarnation with what is left over. Sethe’s circle of love is then comprised of Beloved and only Beloved, as she abandons her other relationships with Denver and Paul D in laser-focused obsession toward her resurrected daughter.
Sethe’s fanatical love for Beloved also prevents her and others from seeing its degradation of her own physical and mental health. Page reveals that the repetition of the phrase, “nobody saw them falling,” while Sethe and her daughters ice skate is not only literal, but also symbolizes the trio psychologically beginning to fall, since Sethe’s excessive pandering to Beloved begins from there. She falls deep into her newfound relationship with the resurrected Beloved, tending to Beloved’s every whim at the cost of her relationship with her other daughter Denver, and even Denver at this point falls too far for Beloved to notice her mother’s condition; nobody on the outside of their opaque circle of love is able to see their sanity deteriorating. At the peak of Sethe’s obsession, she loves Beloved to the point of extreme possessiveness; the repetition of the word “mine” among the three women right before part 3 show this best. Page in his analysis states that “being ‘mine’ or ‘yours’ is part of the vocabulary of love, but such an emphasis on possession can also unhealthy,” meaning Sethe’s thick love is overwhelming and suffocating. Furthermore, when Stamp Paid tries to visit the house, all he is able to hear is “mine,” while everything else sounds like gibberish; this is representative of blindness from the outside-in, signifying that the family’s love has finally crossed the line of health.
Thanks to Denver’s outreach into their community toward the end of the novel, the balance of loving and the loved reaches equilibrium, and Sethe is able to see the state she has fallen into--her circle expands to a healthier size. Sethe exemplifies how although love is based on positivity, it can become a source of suffocation when it is too much and too focused; the solution is to love soundly.
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