WEEK THIRTEEN: Beloved by Toni Morrison (6)

 Beloved tells a story about poor, black people who used to be slaves. Sethe was a slave before and even after being free she was trapped in her own house being unwelcome from the community and haunted by all the memories of her past. She does not know what happened to her husband and the only thing she has is her children. Sethe loves her children so much that when white people come she kills her daughter to keep her “safe” from slavery comparing that kind of life with death. Cincinnati’s black community plays a crucial role in Morrison’s Beloved.  Communities are complicated, it is not just a group of people living in one place. They help, accept and belong to each other. It is the community that betrayed the 124 and failed to warn them about the Schoolteacher approaching. Sethe, unable to hide, acts radically and kills her daughter. However, it is the same community that helped them to ban Beloved and prevent Sethe from making another mistake by killing Mr. Bodwin.

Before the arrival of the schoolteacher everyone respected the family in 124 and the doors were always open for the community. Eighteen years after the incident Denver finally leaves the house and becomes a part of that same community which saves Sethe, restores the connection and releases her from the past, which is Beloved. The appearance of Beloved is strange but the way she evolves is much stranger. First she is a poor kid that needs help and the reader roots for her, then at the end of the novel she is clearly a threat for Sethe and it is shown even through their appearances in an exaggerated way. 

Baby Suggs being one of the core characters of that community and a leader of a kind never recovers from the betrayal and cuts herself from the community by not going to Saturday Clearings. 

The only white person that is not portrayed as evil is the small child Sethe meets after she escapes the Sweet Home but most likely she is a result of her imagination to give her strength to get through that hard period.

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