Beloved By Toni Morrison: Summary & Analysis

Toni Morrison, an American writer, published Beloved in 1987. The story takes place in the years after the American Civil War and centres on an estranged family of freed slaves whose Cincinnati home is haunted by an unsettling ghost. According to the book's dedication, "Sixty Million and More" refers to the total number of Africans and people descended from them who suffered as a consequence of the Atlantic slave trade.

The story of Beloved is based on the escape of Margaret Garner, a slave from the slave state of Kentucky, and her journey to the democratic republic of Ohio in 1856. Garner tried to kill her children and had already killed her youngest daughter when U.S. marshals broke into the cabin she and her husband were defending. Garner was sought by the police for breaking the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. She took this action to save them from being brought back to slavery.

The main source of inspiration for Morrison's book was an account of the incident titled "A Visit to the Slave Mother Who Killed Her Child" from a newspaper editorial from 1856 that was later included in The Black Book, a collection of writings about Black cultural and historical events that Morrison published in 1974.

The novel was a National novel Award nominee in 1987, and a year after its release, it was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The New York Times polled authors and literary experts to choose the finest piece of American fiction from 1981 through 2006. The 1998 film adaptation of the same-named novel featured Oprah Winfrey.

Beloved Summary

Beloved starts in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1873, where former slave Sethe has been living with her daughter Denver, then 18 years old. Prior to her death eight years earlier, Sethe's mother-in-law Baby Suggs lived with them. The two sons of Sethe, Howard, and Buglar escaped just before Baby Suggs sadly passed away. They left, explains Sethe, because they were being tormented at 124 Bluestone Road by an angry ghost who had lived there for a long time. Denver, however, is happy with the ghost, whom everyone thinks to be the spirit of Denver's late sister.

Paul D, who Sethe hadn't seen in around twenty years when the two of them joined forces on Mr. Garner's Sweet Home farm in Kentucky, pays a visit to Sethe's home on the first day of the story. His presence brings out memories that have been buried in Sethe's memory for almost twenty years. The tale will proceed in two separate chronological directions from now on.

The first one is present in Cincinnati, whereas the other is an ongoing series of events, primarily in Kentucky, that occurred around twenty years ago. The main protagonists' incomplete memories enable access as well as explanations of this next dimension. As a result, we commonly read these memories many times, usually from various perspectives, with each consecutive narration of an incident providing a little more detail than the previous ones.

The following narrative started to form out of these jumbled recollections: The main character, Sethe, was given birth by an unknown African mother in South Africa. When she was thirteen years old, she gets sold to the Garners, who are the owners of their sweet home and are involved in a somewhat humane kind of slavery. All the other enslaved people there are guys dying for her, but they never touch her Sixo, Paul D, Paul A, Paul F, and Halle were their names.

Sethe chooses to wed Halle, maybe in part because he has shown to be sufficiently valuable to buy his mother's independence by laboring on the days off. The children of Sethe and Halle are two boys, Howard and Buglar, and an unborn female, whose name readers are never told. Sethe is expecting her fourth child at the time she leaves Sweet Home. The owner, Mr. Garner, eventually passes away, and mourning Mrs. Garner invites her cruel, passionately racist brother-in-law to assist her in running the farm.

The slaves refer to him as the schoolteacher, and his authoritative appearance makes life on a plantation even more miserable than it always was. The slaves make the decision to flee their homes. However, their teacher & the nephews stop the slaves' escape and catch Paul D and Sixo. In the event a teacher murders Sixo, Paul D is taken to Sweet Home and has his last encounter with Sethe there. She has already moved her kids to Cincinnati to be with her mother-in-law Baby Suggs, but she is still eager to escape.

The schoolteacher's nephews, who were inspired by their earlier success in catching Sethe, kidnap her and hold her captive in the barn. Her body is being exploited to preserve milk for her little kid until they attack her and take it. While Sethe is immobilised with fright, Halle is covertly watching the scene from a loft above him. Paul D observes Halle sitting by a churn with butter covering his face and watches as he falls out of control after that. As this goes on, Paul D has to suffer the disheartening experience of having an iron piece in his mouth.

When the teacher discovers that Sethe has told Mrs. Garner about his and his nephews' crimes, he lashes at her ruthlessly, ignoring the fact that she is expecting a baby. Even appearing swelled and visually impaired, Sethe flees away, but while she does so, she falls out into a forest from exhaustion. Amy Denver, a white girl, discovers her and takes care of her recovery.

Sethe afterward requests Amy's help to deliver her child on a boat, and she gives Amy's name to her second daughter, whom she calls Denver. Stamp Paid provides Sethe with additional help by paddling her to Baby Suggs' home across the Ohio River. Before letting Sethe meet her three older children, Baby Suggs cleans her up. Baby Suggs is the unofficial leader of the black community in Cincinnati, where Sethe lives twenty-eight magnificent days.

But on the final day, the teacher returns and asks Sethe to go with her and the children back to their Sweet Home. She runs away with her kids to the woodshed and tries to assassinate them instead of handing them over to a life of marginalizing enslavement. Only the third kid, her elder daughter, dies tragically when Sethe slashes her neck with a handsaw. Later, Sethe makes preparations to have the phrase "Beloved" carved onto the baby's tombstone.

Denver and Sethe are detained by the sheriff, but a gang of white opponents of slavery under the leadership of the Bodwins struggle to free her. Sethe goes back to the residence at number 124, where Baby Suggs has collapsed into awful hopelessness. The family remains to live in isolation since the neighborhood ignores the residence.

In the meanwhile, Paul D. has gone through horrific journeys in a chain gang in Georgia, to which he was taken for attempting to murder Brandywine, a slave owner who had bought him from a teacher. Because of his horrific past, he has learned to store his memories, feelings, and capacity for love in the "tin tobacco box" of his heart. One day, a fortunate rainstorm makes it possible for Paul D and the remaining chain gang members to escape. He follows the rising spring blossoms as he makes his way north. He eventually turns up on Sethe's doorstep in Cincinnati years later.

The pattern of events occurring in this particular time frame starts with Paul D's arrival at 124. Denver, who is already lonely, immediately dislikes Paul D since he forces the house's resident spirit away before settling in. Before they stumbled upon a weird young lady sleeping next to the stairs of 124 one day while returning from a funfair, Sethe and Paul D had enormous expectations for their future as a couple.

Most of the characters-including the lady who goes by the name Beloved-believe that the woman is Sethe's deceased daughter in physical form, and the book is overflowing with examples supporting this claim. Denver grows a fascination with Beloved, and Beloved is equally, if not even more, obsessed with Sethe. Beloved manipulates Paul D by dragging him about the house like a rag doll and caressing him against his will since they have an unstable relationship and both of them hate one another.

After knowing about Sethe's "rough choice"-her infanticide-Paul D decides to leave 124 and start camping in the nearby church's basement. Sethe and Beloved's connection becomes deeper and exclusive without him. As Beloved becomes more aggressive, fraudulent, and parasitic, Sethe fixates on meeting her needs and clarifying everything that happened around her death. Denver departs from 124 for the first time in 12 years to meet Lady Jones, a former teacher, to ask for help as she is worried about how her mother is suffering.

The neighborhood supports the family and finally rallies together to expel the Beloved from 124 under Ella's supervision. Ella was a member of the infamous Underground Railroad and supported Sethe in departing. When they return to Sethe's residence, they find Sethe there with Beloved, who looks happy, naked, and pregnant and stands on the doorstep.

As Denver reaches her new workplace, Mr. Bodwin, who has traveled to 124, arrives at the residence. Sethe charges Mr. Bodwin with an ice pick because she thinks he's a teacher. Even though she feels limited, Beloved disappears permanently during the chaos.

Paul D then returns to Sethe, who has taken refuge in Baby Suggs's bed and has decided to get a goodbye. Sethe laments, "She was my best thing," when grieving Beloved. In response, Paul D says, "You're your best thing, Sethe." The book finishes with the disclaimer that "this is not a story to pass on." Like a horrible dream after a troubled slumber, the town and even the people of 124 have forgotten Beloved.

Important Characters

1. Sethe

The story's main character is named Sethe. She fled enslavement from the Sweet Home plantation. She purportedly killed her baby kid there, and now she lives in a home with the spooky figure 124. She lives in her residence with her child Denver since her two sons have left due to the haunting.

She is a devoted mother who will give up on everything to save her kids from the abuse she endured when they were slaves. She is significantly impacted by the trauma she suppressed. She has scars from her beatings that are like "a tree on her back," and she survives with them.

2. Beloved

The novel's main theme is our fuzzy understanding of Beloved. When Sethe, Denver, and Paul D return from the fair, they find her dripping wet on the door and decide to take her in. She is a young lady who unexpectedly emerges from an unidentified body of water next to Sethe's home. Since the haunting stops when she enters and she acts a lot like a kid, she is popularly thought to be the dead infant that haunted 124. Furthermore, Beloved recounts tales of former slaves, including Sethe's mother and a young lady held hostage by a White man nearby who had escaped.

According to Morrison, Beloved is the murdered daughter of Sethe. She got her name from the inscriptions on Sethe's deceased baby's headstone, which simply said "Beloved" since Sethe couldn't afford to carve the word "Dearly" or something else. Since the killed baby had no name, this is how her name came about. Beloved acts as an opportunity for the family's hidden pain to come to light, but it also awakens panic and progressively drains Sethe.

3. Paul D

Most of the men who were held as slaves at Sweet Home went by the name Paul. Thus, Paul D still uses it. He still had a lot of traumatic memories from slavery and having to endure life in a chain gang; he remembers traveling about often before getting to 124.

He keeps his traumatic memories within his "tobacco tin" of a heart until Beloved unlocks it. Paul D and Sethe meet up again and start dating after spending time together at Sweet Home. He treats Denver with fatherly affection and is the first to have doubts about Beloved. Despite their lengthy history, he doesn't really know Sethe, partly because she became a mother and so much time has gone.

4. Denver

The only kid of Sethe still living in House 124 in Denver. Denver becomes close to her mother despite being cut off from her community as a result of Beloved's murder. Denver witnesses her sister's spirit starting to manifest demonic traits as Beloved gets there. Denver changes throughout the book from a childlike character to a protective one. Denver breaks the pattern of seclusion at House 124 in the closing chapters by fighting for both her mother's health and freedom.

5. Baby Suggs

The mother-in-law of Sethe is Baby Suggs. She moves to Cincinnati and becomes a well-respected community leader there after her son Halle fought to get her release. She then teaches Black people to accept themselves since other people won't. This respect decreases as she changes some food into an extravagant meal, inspiring their jealousy and leading to Sethe's infanticide. When Baby Suggs goes to sleep, she spends the rest of her life daydreaming about gorgeous colors. Eight years before the major events, at age 70, she passes away at the start of the novel.

6. Halle

Sethe's spouse and the father of her kids is the father of Halle. They were wed at Sweet Home, but Sethe's escape caused them to become estranged. He only appears in flashbacks. Halle was last seen by Paul D when she was making butter at Sweet Home. He is said to have lost his mind after seeing Sweet Home inhabitants breaking Sethe.

7. Schoolteacher

The schoolteacher is in the role of disciplining everyone and treats the individuals he held captive at Sweet Home like animals by being harsh, abusive, and nasty to them. Following her escape, he pursues Sethe, but she murders her daughter and is captured.

8. Amy Denver

After escaping from Sweet Home and attempting to reach Boston, Sethe is discovered by a little white girl named Amy Denver while she is frantically trying to find a way to safety. Sethe appears to be pregnant at the time, and her journey has caused her feet to bleed severely. Denver, Sethe's daughter, is named after Amy after she helps care for her and delivers the baby on a tiny boat.