Xander Wallace
7 December 2015
Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved chronicles a former slave’s confrontation with her morbid past in an effort towards her reconciliation as a free woman. Through the use of plot structure, sequencing, and characterization, Morrison demonstrates a paradoxical circularity between the character’s desires and the results of those desires to convey that one cannot move forward into the future without acknowledging the past.
Philip Page’s psychoanalytical paper Circularity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved reflects on the social interactions and community structures in the aforementioned novel, Beloved by Toni Morrison. Through analysis of the book’s text, Page identifies overarching themes related to emotion, memory, and interdependence within the novel. Page uses these themes to claim that the character’s motives and actions in Beloved exhibit a paradoxical circularity. Page’s foremost claim is that the endeavors of the characters in Beloved--particularly the main character Sethe--are trapped in a futile “circle,” where desire and fulfillment of that desire cannot coexist sequentially or finitely.
Although Page’s concept of “circularity” applies to many aspects of the novel, the foremost psychological circularity is that in the lives of the characters. Page claims that the main characters in Beloved possess a “desire to become spiritually and psychologically whole” (Page, 33), but are haunted by trauma from the past which they are unable to confront. The plight of Beloved’s main characters do all revolve around some sort of trauma, dejection, or spiritual void. The novel chiefly revolves around consequences of the trauma in the protagonist Sethe’s life, namely her ironically well-intended yet ill-advised murder of her first born daughter--an effort to spare the child of the inevitable hardship and suffering of a black woman in 1800’s America. As a survivor of slavery and current mother of three, Sethe desires to live as a free woman--free of chains both physical and psychological--to reconcile her psyche and lead a normal life with her children. However, Sethe is plagued with a conflict between her id and superego which sets the stage for the psychological conflict of the novel. Almost a psychosis, the desires of Sethe’s conscious clash with the nature of her subconscious, the former of which is tragically contradicted by events in the plot. All the time while she is haunted--in a way more than figurative--by the grim deed of her past.
The additional cast of characters plagued by trauma-induced “circularity” includes Paul D, a former fellow slave and current love interest of Sethe; Denver, Sethe’s lonely and agoraphobic daughter; and a rather peculiar addition to Sethe’s dysfunctional “family”--the adult incarnate ghost of her murdered daughter, Beloved. Paul D has been roaming the states for years since his liberation from slavery, finding refuge and reconciliation nowhere until he reunites with Sethe and moves in with her. Between his years as an abused slave and those spent serving in a prison chain gang, Paul D had arguably faced enough trauma for he and Sethe both. So much so that he can bear very little emotional vulnerability, opting to keep his memories locked up in the “tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be” (Morrison, 7). Denver, Sethe’s daughter, is fundamentally lonely and dejected, dependent on her mother’s affection while at the same time weary of her capacity for violence. Denver indeed knows about her mother’s dark deed; it was fuel for endless ridicule by other children, and by extension, the cause of her deep-rooted emotional fragility and agoraphobia. This condition causes Denver to develop a constant feeling that she is out of place--longing for her mother’s love while fearing it (a “paradoxical sub-circle,” if you will), and feeling unwelcome in the outside community. One night, a woman emerges from the creek near the residence of Sethe, Paul D, and Denver. This young woman, revealed to be the supernatural incarnation of the departed Beloved, arrives in the story with an ardent desire for Sethe’s affection--at a time where Sethe’s superego wants no more than to let go of the past and settle down. However, the past won’t have any of that. Having been killed by her mother and spent twenty years in the afterlife with nothing but her tortured thoughts, Beloved had endured an emotionally rattling experience unlike that of any other character--and possesses a desire for emotional fulfillment just as fervent. While their psychological afflictions are different, Sethe, Paul D, Denver and Beloved all share a conscious desire for their own spiritual and emotional fulfillment in the wake of trauma--trauma that remains in their subconscious.
As a physical manifestation of the past the characters try so hard to repress, Beloved sets the stage for the ultimate detrimental “circle” of emotional desire and anguish that spans between all affected characters, breaking apart the potential family in the process. The individual relationships between characters in the story after Beloved’s arrival, some of which are potential family archetypes, are jeopardized by the clashing of each other’s individual psychological desires. Each character wants something. It is apparent from the very beginning of Paul D’s residence with Sethe and Denver that he could be a husband and father figure for Sethe and Denver, respectively. With the three a “family”, Sethe would attain a sense of normalcy and completion, Paul D would have a loving home, and Denver would have a supportive figure to balance out her and Sethe’s precarious relationship. When Beloved arrives, bearing a seemingly parasitic attraction to Sethe, she develops unique relationships with all three characters that both tampers with their damaged emotional psyches and jeopardizes the potential family. Beloved’s unbridled drive for Sethe’s undivided affection causes Paul D to not only grow jealous of Beloved, but to question her motives. The revelation that Beloved is in fact the ghost of Sethe’s murderous deed sends Paul D into shock and drives him farther away from Sethe. Denver sees Beloved as a potential “big sister” figure and a cure for her loneliness. However, Beloved’s obvious unparalleled interest in Sethe causes Denver to feel abandoned and further dejected--having thought she had found a companion only to understand that she is largely indifferent to her presence. Lastly, a sexual tryst occurs between Beloved and Paul D which he seems to have no control over, characterizing Beloved as a succubus-type entity intent on separating he and Sethe. As if induced by hypnosis, making love with Beloved causes Paul D’s memories to resurface, revealing his “red heart” and forcing him to relive the disfiguring trauma of his past he kept locked away so tightly (Morrison, 11). Beloved’s seduction of Paul D not only reopened a psychological wound he had hoped to seal by settling with Sethe, but created infidelity between them, drawing them farther apart. Beloved’s sabotage, whether inadvertent or intentional, spoils Sethe, Paul D, and Denver’s effort for deliverance from past of trauma. This series of events composes the overarching futile “circle” in Beloved: each character finds relationships to potentially cure their emotional/psychological ailments--and it seems likely that these relationships would thrive independently--however they cannot coexist. The unacknowledged past (AKA Beloved) caused these relationships to essentially destroy one another.
Philip Page’s psychoanalytical paper Circularity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved reflects on the social interactions and community structures in the aforementioned novel, Beloved by Toni Morrison. Through analysis of the book’s text, Page identifies overarching themes related to emotion, memory, and interdependence within the novel. Page uses these themes to claim that the character’s motives and actions in Beloved exhibit a paradoxical circularity. Page’s foremost claim is that the endeavors of the characters in Beloved--particularly the main character Sethe--are trapped in a futile “circle,” where desire and fulfillment of that desire cannot coexist sequentially or finitely.
Although Page’s concept of “circularity” applies to many aspects of the novel, the foremost psychological circularity is that in the lives of the characters. Page claims that the main characters in Beloved possess a “desire to become spiritually and psychologically whole” (Page, 33), but are haunted by trauma from the past which they are unable to confront. The plight of Beloved’s main characters do all revolve around some sort of trauma, dejection, or spiritual void. The novel chiefly revolves around consequences of the trauma in the protagonist Sethe’s life, namely her ironically well-intended yet ill-advised murder of her first born daughter--an effort to spare the child of the inevitable hardship and suffering of a black woman in 1800’s America. As a survivor of slavery and current mother of three, Sethe desires to live as a free woman--free of chains both physical and psychological--to reconcile her psyche and lead a normal life with her children. However, Sethe is plagued with a conflict between her id and superego which sets the stage for the psychological conflict of the novel. Almost a psychosis, the desires of Sethe’s conscious clash with the nature of her subconscious, the former of which is tragically contradicted by events in the plot. All the time while she is haunted--in a way more than figurative--by the grim deed of her past.
The additional cast of characters plagued by trauma-induced “circularity” includes Paul D, a former fellow slave and current love interest of Sethe; Denver, Sethe’s lonely and agoraphobic daughter; and a rather peculiar addition to Sethe’s dysfunctional “family”--the adult incarnate ghost of her murdered daughter, Beloved. Paul D has been roaming the states for years since his liberation from slavery, finding refuge and reconciliation nowhere until he reunites with Sethe and moves in with her. Between his years as an abused slave and those spent serving in a prison chain gang, Paul D had arguably faced enough trauma for he and Sethe both. So much so that he can bear very little emotional vulnerability, opting to keep his memories locked up in the “tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be” (Morrison, 7). Denver, Sethe’s daughter, is fundamentally lonely and dejected, dependent on her mother’s affection while at the same time weary of her capacity for violence. Denver indeed knows about her mother’s dark deed; it was fuel for endless ridicule by other children, and by extension, the cause of her deep-rooted emotional fragility and agoraphobia. This condition causes Denver to develop a constant feeling that she is out of place--longing for her mother’s love while fearing it (a “paradoxical sub-circle,” if you will), and feeling unwelcome in the outside community. One night, a woman emerges from the creek near the residence of Sethe, Paul D, and Denver. This young woman, revealed to be the supernatural incarnation of the departed Beloved, arrives in the story with an ardent desire for Sethe’s affection--at a time where Sethe’s superego wants no more than to let go of the past and settle down. However, the past won’t have any of that. Having been killed by her mother and spent twenty years in the afterlife with nothing but her tortured thoughts, Beloved had endured an emotionally rattling experience unlike that of any other character--and possesses a desire for emotional fulfillment just as fervent. While their psychological afflictions are different, Sethe, Paul D, Denver and Beloved all share a conscious desire for their own spiritual and emotional fulfillment in the wake of trauma--trauma that remains in their subconscious.
As a physical manifestation of the past the characters try so hard to repress, Beloved sets the stage for the ultimate detrimental “circle” of emotional desire and anguish that spans between all affected characters, breaking apart the potential family in the process. The individual relationships between characters in the story after Beloved’s arrival, some of which are potential family archetypes, are jeopardized by the clashing of each other’s individual psychological desires. Each character wants something. It is apparent from the very beginning of Paul D’s residence with Sethe and Denver that he could be a husband and father figure for Sethe and Denver, respectively. With the three a “family”, Sethe would attain a sense of normalcy and completion, Paul D would have a loving home, and Denver would have a supportive figure to balance out her and Sethe’s precarious relationship. When Beloved arrives, bearing a seemingly parasitic attraction to Sethe, she develops unique relationships with all three characters that both tampers with their damaged emotional psyches and jeopardizes the potential family. Beloved’s unbridled drive for Sethe’s undivided affection causes Paul D to not only grow jealous of Beloved, but to question her motives. The revelation that Beloved is in fact the ghost of Sethe’s murderous deed sends Paul D into shock and drives him farther away from Sethe. Denver sees Beloved as a potential “big sister” figure and a cure for her loneliness. However, Beloved’s obvious unparalleled interest in Sethe causes Denver to feel abandoned and further dejected--having thought she had found a companion only to understand that she is largely indifferent to her presence. Lastly, a sexual tryst occurs between Beloved and Paul D which he seems to have no control over, characterizing Beloved as a succubus-type entity intent on separating he and Sethe. As if induced by hypnosis, making love with Beloved causes Paul D’s memories to resurface, revealing his “red heart” and forcing him to relive the disfiguring trauma of his past he kept locked away so tightly (Morrison, 11). Beloved’s seduction of Paul D not only reopened a psychological wound he had hoped to seal by settling with Sethe, but created infidelity between them, drawing them farther apart. Beloved’s sabotage, whether inadvertent or intentional, spoils Sethe, Paul D, and Denver’s effort for deliverance from past of trauma. This series of events composes the overarching futile “circle” in Beloved: each character finds relationships to potentially cure their emotional/psychological ailments--and it seems likely that these relationships would thrive independently--however they cannot coexist. The unacknowledged past (AKA Beloved) caused these relationships to essentially destroy one another.
The souring of relationships brought forth by Beloved’s presence is certainly no coincidence. Each main character in discussion has a traumatic past which they try to repress--to escape from and move on. When Paul D arrives, it seems as though the three may find their reconciliation and emotional fulfillment after all. The arrival of Beloved and the following havoc serves as a conduit for Morrison’s message about the futility of ignoring the past. As hard as it is to face, Sethe, Paul D and Denver allow Beloved to live with them, lest they need to confront the ugly past. So by turning a blind eye to Beloved’s possibly destructive nature and assuming her presence benevolent, their ability to live happily-ever-after is ultimately compromised. Beloved serves as a larger metaphor for the unacknowledged past, and effectively destroys the present for Sethe, Paul D, and Denver. The three characters are unwilling to confront the anguish of the past, and are thus condemned to experience such anguish once more.
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