Research Paper On Beloved

A Fading Memory
The novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison, illuminates the memory of slavery through history and the past. In remembering and exploring the trauma that slavery bestowed upon its victims, Morrison sheds light on an institution that denied people of a certain color the right to an existence and furthermore, an identity. Identity, the fact of being who or what a person or thing is, is an essential aspect of the novel that highlights a basic right stolen by slave owners. In the present day, there is a national amnesia of slavery such that no race wants to remember and support the immorality of their ancestors from a time of national disgrace. Morrison fights to break the silence of slavery’s destruction on slaves and their identities
through recovering a history that has been lost due to neglecting the past or to forced silence. As a result of slavery, the characters in Beloved are haunted by its physical and mental tortures, yet crave normalcy and peace, something they will never achieve in their lifetimes. Through her genuine and exposing story, Morrison reveals ex-slaves’ lack of self and process of self-recognition through remembering. Although Sethe, Paul D., and Baby Suggs finally free themselves from the first-hand brutality and corruption of slavery, the effects still linger as slavery dehumanizes these characters and forces the little identity they have left to be intertwined and governed by their recollections of an institution in which they had no rightful ownership of themselves.

After being freed from years of enslavement, Sethe no longer has an identity as she suppresses her torturous past that has defined her being.
Throughout her life as a slave and finally as a freed woman, Sethe believes that she only has two titles which make up her identity: mother and slave. However, as a slave, Sethe could never truly embrace the title of a mother as Schoolteacher and his nephews at Sweet Home robbed her from a crucial part that allows her to be a mother; her milk: “And they took my milk!”. To Sethe, milk meant that there is more to her than what she is told she is. Despite all the torturous and desensitizing encounters Sethe faces during her time as a slave, her loss of milk deems to be the most life changing for her. Not only does she lose her tangible connection to motherhood, but she also loses an aspect of herself that has been defining her for her whole existence. In losing part of her maternal identity, Sethe is driven to the violence that establishes the main upset of the novel, her murdering of Beloved. Due to Sethe’s deprivation of identity and choice, she is compelled to enter a corrupted place where slavery brings out her most animalistic qualities: “’You got two feet, Sethe, not four’” (194). Slavery pushes Sethe to transform her being and values and commit an arguably bestial act of killing her own child. In doing so, Sethe’s identity morphs once again to that of which the white man desires and ultimately constitutes the idea that the death of
her children and the lack of an identity is preferable to allowing her children the right of life. Sethe’s identity throughout slavery alters because of the harshness of slave culture. However, as a free woman, Sethe’s identity gradually fades as she tries to suppress her memories of slavery and certain moments in order fight the notion that her past experiences construct her present identity.

Due to the stripping of Paul D.’s manhood during his slave period, he is forced to search for an identity he never had and furthermore, may not even know exists.
Over the course of the novel, Morrison exposes how the lack of a father figure causes Paul D. to have to deduce what a real man is by himself and assess whether he has the right to claim himself as one. Throughout the novel, Paul D.’s manhood is frequently under threat by members of Sweet Home and is constantly being redefined. As a result, Paul D. finds himself lost and has trouble finding sense of his true identity. During his slave days, Paul D.’s manhood is tested and leads him to doubt if he could ever be a real man since everything that he is can be summed up into a dollar value: “he has always known, or believed he did, his value…he learns his price. The dollar value of his weight, his strength, his heart, his brain, his penis, and his future” (267). Through the inhumane institution of slavery, Paul D. always knew that his physical ability had some type of worth, however, he never knew that his emotions, intellect, and future would be valued at a price that would only depreciate throughout the years. In labeling Paul D. and the other slaves with monetary values, the slave owners not only belittle their existences, but also dehumanize their slaves by robbing them of their identities. Slavery degrades Paul. D. as he is forced to call a rooster by the name Mister and is taught that a barnyard animal has more of
an identity than he will ever come to have: “’Mister, he looked so…free. Better than me. Stronger, tougher’… Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But I wasn’t allowed to be and stay what I was” (86). As a slave, Paul D. could never be considered a man; he must be controllable and restrained in a way that animals did not even have to be. Sweet Home snatches away Paul D.’s manhood and proves that a mere rooster has more freedom and worth, where it has freedom to walk around and do whatever it pleases, while a human, equal in value to the man who claims to be his owner, is left unidentifiable.

Even though Baby Suggs spreads knowledge of what it is to be a human, slavery prevents her from ever attaining her identity. During her younger years as a slave, Baby Suggs finds herself shaped by white slave owners, ultimately transforming her identity into one that the white men wanted, rather than one that is shaped by her own values and morals. At Sweet Home, Baby Suggs is persistent in claiming the name “Mrs. Baby Suggs” as that was how her husband addressed her and that is who she sees herself as. However, despite Baby Suggs’ plea to carry on her husband’s name, Garner consistently addresses her as Jenny because he believes Suggs is not a proper name: “’If I was you I’d stick to Jenny Whitlow. Mrs. Baby Suggs ain’t no name for a freed Negro’” (167). In being forced to be called Jenny, Baby Suggs loses her identity and is forced to mold into the woman Garner wants her to be. To Baby Suggs, Jenny represents a lack of individuality as well as her failure to define herself. Throughout the novel, Morrison highlights the idea that slavery renders its victims useless and strips away their identities. Baby Suggs recognizes after a long life of not being in control of herself that she has been “suspended in between the nastiness of life and the meanness of the dead, she couldn’t get interested in leaving life or living it” (3). Baby Suggs sees no difference between living or dying as slavery distorted her self-conception by destroying her family and denying her the right to be her own person, a true wife, sister or loving mother. Throughout Beloved, Baby Suggs is considered all-knowing and evolves into a preacher and leader of her own congregation. Baby Suggs teaches through her knowledge, yet fails to truly experience a tangibility in her life: “she told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it” (103). Baby Suggs preaches that in order to be oneself, they must first know themselves. However, since Baby Suggs has no experience of being her own person because of the brutality that she faces as a slave, where she has no family or role in life, she proves that a slave’s identity will never be more than what their owner believes it is.

Despite being free from the oppression of slavery, the characters in Beloved discover that their past experiences as slaves have molded their present identities. Through the progression of the novel, the reader finds that slavery was not just an institution that allowed white settlers to take advantage of innocent people of African descent, but rather a tactic to dehumanize an entire race of humans. In attempt to cleanse themselves of their history, Sethe and Paul D. purposely suppress their past and memories, ultimately allowing their identities to fade along with their history. In not only the novel, but in the outside world as well, slavery became a story not to pass on. After being haunted by the tortures of slavery, many past slaves find that their identities have been shaped by and entangled with their memories of slavery. Beloved serves an intricate exploitation of the immorality of a nation, ultimately triggering generations to forget the traumas of slavery as a form of self-preservation.