Since Susan did such an amazing job capturing the essence of this novel, I’ll focus on other messages I dredged from this text, one of the most compelling being the divide and conquer theory of colonialism, and how this has affected the African American community. Throughout the first half of the text Morrison speaks to the damaged psychological condition of African Americans as the direct result of slavery. In the second half, she introduces the relationship between the psychologically damaged African American within their community and how a divided community further deteriorates the African American experience.

In the first half, Sethe is described as being unusually strong in the face of atrocities she has known in her life as a slave. When Paul D. shows up, Denver sees a new side of her, a more vulnerable side that is not the “queenly woman” who “never looked away, who when a man got stomped to death by a mare right in front of Sawyer’s restaurant did not look away…” Sethe is aware of her image as a strong woman and believes others are threatened by it. As she walks to the fair with Paul D. and Denver, she thinks the members of the community will think she is “putting on airs,” that she is “tougher, because she could do and survive things they believed she should neither do nor survive.” In the second half of the novel, however, she begins to unravel, as she finally faces her past head-on. She is no longer able to fend off her memories, and she lets go of her final thread of sanity.

It turns out that Sethe’s assumptions about her community were correct, “Just about everybody in town was longing for Sethe to come on difficult times. Her outrageous claims, her self-sufficiency seemed to demand it…” Although the people in her community are aware of the strangeness of her isolation, and even believe that the house is haunted, they are not satisfied. They refuse to acknowledge the link between the violence of slavery and Sethe’s condition. Beloved becomes a conduit of the divide and conquer notion because her presence both divides Sethe from her community (and even Paul D.) and eventually conquers her sanity.

Although Stamp Paid seems to understand the link between slavery or “white folks” and Baby Sugg’s mental deterioration, he struggles with the link between the violence against African Americans and Sethe. As he walks home from 124, he thinks about the violence, “Eighteen seventy-four and white folks were still o the loose. Whole towns wiped clean of Negroes; eighty-seven lynchings in one year alone in Kentucky; four colored schools burned to the ground; grown men whipped like children; children whipped like adults…” It seems that there is some part of him that tries to understand the link between violence against African Americans and Sethe, but he is more influenced by the attitudes held by the majority of his community and is therefore unable to reconnect with Sethe.

Paul D. admits “He can’t put his finger on it, but it seems, for a moment, that just beyond his knowing is the glare of an outside thing that embraces while it accuses.” This double-edged blade, Morrison seems to be shouting, speaks to the importance of community among African Americans in the face of the larger evil, which is slavery and racism.

Beloved by Toni Morrison is one of those novels that stay with you: it provokes a response so deep from the reader that it will haunt you and hopefully better you and your understanding of history.

The story centers around a run-away slave named Sethe; she manages to escape and free her children also. But, the price she pays for her freedom is almost too much to ask. Her time spent at Sweet Home, where she was owned, will forever be part of her life. It is hard to reconcile the name Sweet Home, with the degredation of slavery that Sethe experiences there. I think the name Sweet Home exemplifies the rhetoric that slavery and colonization lived under; if you act and talk like you are helping the poor black folk, then you can convince yourself (as a slave owner) that what you are doing isn't horrifically inhumane.

Sethe found hapiness in her marriage at Sweet Home, but she also found heartbreak and humiliation at the hands of her owner's sons. It is one thing to read about the indiginities of slavery: usually the accounts are in terms of the physical damage and physical taxation of slavery. Through Sethe's journey and memories, you get a different sense of the price of slavery on its victims; the reader experiences what slavery does to the mental psyche.

Morrison takes us so effectively into Sethe's head when she relives her memories, that empathy for Sethe isn't the only emotion the reader experiences; we also experience her heartbreak and we can understand the desperation that drove her actions. I am not suggesting that this novel can come close to the pain and mental anguish that slaves endured, but Morrison weaves the emotional savagery of slavery so perfectly, that when Sethe experiences a loss, the reader does too.

I wouldn't be giving anything away to describe the plot of the novel, since it is explained on the cover. One of Sethe's daughters has died, and both of her boys have run off. There is only one daughter left living with Sethe when we arrive at her house as readers. But a strange and mysterious young lady arrives one day; her name is Beloved and she has come to live with Sethe. Beloved is the daughter of Sethe's who has died; she has come back for answers.

This novel is so bewitching and haunting, that I felt the need to put it down at various times in order to reflect on what just occurred. I have read many of Morrison's works, and I think that this one is her best by far. I confess that I read the novel at least 10 years ago (so this review may be patchy), but I have recently heard it read. I am not a fan of audio books ususally, but I was lucky enough to snare a CD of Toni Morrison reading this novel. Listening to Morrison reading Beloved was almost like listening to Morrison become Sethe herself.

I highly recommend this novel! Happy Reading!