Grief In Toni Morrison's Beloved

Olivia McNeely Pass evaluates Toni Morrison’s Beloved as one in which the main character goes through Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief. Pass iterates that in denying the evil of the ghost (and in turn Beloved’s death), Sethe takes part in the first stage of Kübler-Ross’ model (118). When Beloved literally and metaphorically begins to strangle the life out of Sethe, she finally reaches the second stage, anger, and even reprimands Beloved for the first time (122). This anger quickly leads Sethe into the bargaining stage because she is not fully aware that Beloved is actually her child (121). Morrisons also uses literary devices to symbolize the stages; Pass comments that her use of metaphor “clearly exemplifies the bargaining position