Book 2: Beloved

For this post, I thought I would start with the list that I am using for this project. The books highlighted in green are books that I have read; those in yellow are ones that I own but have not read. I have decided to read Alice in Wonderland rather than Persuasion because I recently acquired a copy and it is nearer to the top of the list.

The second book that I chose for this project was Toni Morrison's Beloved. A heartbreaking story about a former slave and her children, Beloved captures the generational trauma introduced by slavery as well as the difficulty of leaving behind a painful past, especially in reference to those slaves but also to everyone who has endured painful times.

Beloved is a strange novel. Some critics even refer to it as horror. In brief snatches of memories, readers begin to picture the life of Sethe, who escaped from her master and mistress in Kentucky and fled to Cincinnati eighteen years ago. At the time of her escape, she had three small children, giving birth to a fourth on her way to freedom. After a month in their newfound safe haven, her husband nowhere to be found, Sethe meets her worst fear: her master and three other white men ride horseback into her yard, intending to punish her and bring the family back to Kentucky. Madly desperate to keep her children from being enslaved again, Sethe gathers her four children in the woodshed out back, picks up a saw, and cuts the throat of her older baby girl. She is apprehended before she can kill the others.

After a brief stint in prison, Sethe returns to her life. Baby Suggs, the big-hearted mother-in-law who Sethe had come to live with in Cincinnati, loses heart and slowly dies. Howard and Buglar, the two oldest children, run away from home as soon as they are old enough. And Denver, though she was only a month old at the time of the killing, spends her life living in fear that Sethe will decide to kill again.

Meanwhile, the house is haunted by the ghost of the dead baby, who makes noises, slams doors, and creates other mild disturbances. After Sethe takes up with a friend from the plantation where she worked in Kentucky, the "baby ghost" disappears. In her place appears a young woman who only Denver knows to be the ghost of her sister, taking the flesh form of the woman she would have become. After months of living together, the dynamic between the three women grows to full toxicity. Both Denver and Sethe adore Beloved, whose identity is now understood. But Beloved is manipulative, demanding, and possibly dangerous.

Eventually, after Sethe attempts to murder the landlord who she has mistaken for her former master, Beloved disappears. Life returns to the way it was before, and, slowly, Beloved is forgotten.

Beloved's character does not have a real name; it was erased with her life. Sethe was only able to afford to have "beloved" engraved on her headstone, and so her identity was taken. This is representative of the loss of self brought on by slavery. Beloved herself represents the haunting memory of slavery, one that, even if mostly forgotten, is always lingering maliciously nearby.

A heartbreaking and disturbing novel representing a heartbreaking and disturbing time in our country's past, it is no wonder Beloved is often considered an essential read. Reading this novel has also inspired me to read more African American literature in the future.