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A comprehensive overview of Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, which explores the themes of slavery, freedom, and memory through the story of Sethe, a former slave who kills her daughter to prevent her from being enslaved. The summary covers the main events, characters, and motifs of the novel, as well as its historical and literary contexts.
- Toni Morrison
- 1987
A summary of the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison, which explores the themes of slavery, freedom, and the haunting of the past. The story follows Sethe, a former slave who killed her child to prevent her from being enslaved, and her daughter Denver, who is haunted by the ghost of Beloved, the returned spirit of Sethe's dead child.
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Beloved, novel by Toni Morrison, published in 1987 and winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The work examines the destructive legacy of slavery as it chronicles the life of a Black woman named Sethe, from her pre-Civil War days as a slave in Kentucky to her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1873. Although Sethe lives there as a free woman, she...
The novel is based on the true story of a Black slave woman, Margaret Garner, who in 1856 escaped from a Kentucky plantation with her husband, Robert, and their children. They sought refuge in Ohio, but their owner and law officers soon caught up with the family. Before their recapture, Margaret killed her young daughter to prevent her return to slavery. In the novel, Sethe is also a passionately devoted mother, who flees with her children from an abusive owner known as “schoolteacher.” They are caught, and, in an act of supreme love and sacrifice, she too tries to kill her children to keep them from slavery. Only her two-year-old daughter dies, and the schoolteacher, believing that Sethe is crazy, decides not to take her back. Sethe later has “Beloved” inscribed on her daughter’s tombstone. Although she had intended for it to read “Dearly Beloved,” she did not have the energy to “pay” for two words (each word cost her 10 minutes of sex with the engraver).
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These events are revealed in flashbacks, as the novel opens in 1873, with Sethe and her teenage daughter, Denver, living in Ohio, where their house at 124 Bluestone Road is haunted by the angry ghost of the child Sethe killed. The hauntings are alleviated by the arrival of Paul D, a man so ravaged by his slave past that he keeps his feelings in the “tobacco bin” of his heart. He worked on the same plantation as Sethe, and the two begin a relationship. A brief period of relative calm ends with the appearance of a young woman who says that her name is Beloved. She knows things that suggest she is the reincarnation of Sethe’s lost daughter. Sethe is obsessed with assuaging her guilt and tries to placate the increasingly demanding and manipulative Beloved. At one point, Beloved seduces Paul D. After learning that Sethe killed her daughter, he leaves.
Beloved offers a harrowing look at slavery and its lasting impact. The intensely shocking and moving narrative was written in a variety of voices and lengthy fragmentary monologues, which, like the character of Beloved herself, are sometimes ambiguous. Morrison’s beautiful language and intense imagery, however, were rightly celebrated in this class...
Plot summary. Beloved begins in 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio, with Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, and her 18-year-old daughter, Denver, who live at 124 Bluestone Road. The site has been haunted for years by what they believe is the ghost of Sethe's eldest daughter. Denver is shy, friendless, and housebound.
- Toni Morrison
- 1987
A comprehensive guide to Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, a fictional account of a former slave woman's life and the ghost of her murdered child. Learn about the plot, themes, characters, and analysis of this Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece.
Learn about the plot, characters, themes, and context of Beloved, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a haunted former slave. Explore the full summary, analysis, and quizzes on SparkNotes.
Beloved is a haunting and dark novel, full of gothic elements and acts of terrible violence. The ghost represents the power of the legacy of slavery, which continues to trouble Sethe eighteen years after she won her freedom.
