Beloved, By Toni Morrison

Love is described in many ways, and most are not palpable, or completely visible to the naked eye. It is an extremely intricate thing that most philosophers, poets, writers, and artists have had trouble capturing for millenia. However, the description of love only becomes more complicated when one adds the horrifying realities of slavery, and the fissures it creates within broken families. Toni Morrison explores just how convoluted the definition of love can become in her book Beloved. In the book, we see that Sethe's choice to either kill her daughter, or have her become a slave on the plantation as arguably the biggest, and most important event in Beloved. Her choice was truly whether or not she was a good mother for deciding that she loved her child so much that she would much rather murder her child, than have her become a slave. In Part Two of Beloved, we ferret out the different themes of love through the eyes of Denver, Sethe, and even
However, much like her mom, Denver seems to want to claim Beloved all to herself, "She’s mine, Beloved. She’s mine”(209). But also like her mother, Denver also at one point possessed her sister, and then eventually lost her, when Paul D chased her spirit away from the house. But when Beloved arrives in the flesh, Denver wants to hold on to her and not let her go. Denver's love towards Beloved is outwardly very gentle, seemingly sweet and protective, much like Sethe's version of love. But beneath that, Denver truly wants to keep Beloved at a distance from their mother. In reality, Denver truly believed that Beloved materialized to wait for Halle with her older sister. Denver seems to want to have her own family that excludes Sethe. And although Denver never truly experienced slavery, she has felt the impact of it through the loss of her family, which may be the reason why she feels compelled to want to possess Beloved so