Beloved, By Toni Morrison

Unannounced Visitor “124 was spiteful” begins Morrison, but who or what was spiteful? In her novel Beloved published in 1987, Toni Morrison takes readers on a breathtaking journey through the life of escaped slave Sethe on her road to recovery, or what little can be truly recovered. Sethe is never really able to escape her past especially since the ghost of her dead daughter seems to be haunting her house, and just when she thinks she has bridged the chasm to recovery Beloved appears in full flesh. Who or what is Beloved is at first unclear as she doesn’t seem to fit into any one conventional box, but her circumstantial appearance mirrors that of DJ in the Bees. Although these stories are far from paralleling each other, their comparison provides insight into the being of Beloved. In particular, Beloved’s unusual relationship to the other characters in the novel, such as her physical presence and her attention for some but not all of the characters indicate that Beloved is not only the physical reincarnation of the soul of Sethe’s eldest daughter, but a physical representation of the atrocities of slavery. A striking characteristic of Beloved, that seems to counter that of all other ghostly presences, is her physical presence. She is, in all regards, a living, breathing human that is alive and
Furthermore, just as Beloved is completely devoted to Sethe, DJ is completely devoted to Gene. In a similar light to Beloved, DJ acts as reminder of Gene’s past, however, the former only acts as a reminder of the past but doesn’t function in the present. Whereas DJ acts to remind Gene of his past, Beloved acts to both remind Sethe of her past, but also to alter Sethe’s present life. This difference in purpose, therefore, establishes Beloved as a physical being acting on the past and present versus a psychologically being formed by