“Can love be too thick?” (Morrison, 1987, p. 191). This was the first question came to my mind after reading Beloved. To me, the whole book used dainty plot, capricious characters, creative symbols, and profound themes to answer the question. These four elements also worked together and created an aesthetic process of unfolding a story gradually and tardily. Instead of focusing on slavery per se, the book discussed the incurable trauma caused by it.

For the plot of the book, I want to focus on the climax. In my opinion, the turning point was Beloved disappeared in the mighty song of thirty black women. Since then, the falling action and resolution were peaceful and placid. The community began to accept Sethe, Paul D came back, Denver stepped out of solitude, and finally, there was a beam of light in Sethe’s future. It was dingy but still hopeful, as Paul D said to Sethe once before: “Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow” (Morrison, 1987, p. 314). The climax impressed me especially in the conflict between person and the society. Bluestone 124 was a place that when people passed by they would speed up unconsciously. No one attend this haunted house and no one willing to visit a householder who killed her two-year-old daughter without vacillation. Sethe’s prideful attitude after that event also aroused disapproval and ostracism from the community since she believed her decision was out of love. Unfortunately, the community could not accept this hideous action, which violated ethical code in their view, but the conflict between them was utterly resolved when the thirty women used stern willing power and tolerant love to save their compatriot.

Denver was the first character I wanted to share with others. She was a round protagonist. We had limited knowledge of her appearance, and her complete first-person perspective only once appeared in the novel. But we still could obtain enough information about her by grasping details from other people’s thoughts and memories. Living in a haunted house was not easy for any child, breaking mirrors, tiny handprints in the cake, and smashing dishes, all these abnormal events contributed to Denver’s solitary and surly personality. Denver and I were about the same age; therefore I could readily understand her woe that no one pays attention to her. But this was not the most important. Her deepest secret was that she was afraid of her mother. She remembered eighteen years ago Sethe lost control and tried to kill every child and then suicide. Comparing with her nightmare that she might be killed by her mother one day, in Denver’s opinion; a baby ghost was a friend rather than a specter. I think she was a dynamic character because the strength and bravery she performed at the end of the novel made a strong contrast with her previous timid characteristic. Denver was the first person who got rid of Beloved’s persuasive and enchanting force. Beloved asked Sethe to pay her love debt, and Denver realized that her mother became weaker and weaker while Beloved was greedily devouring love from Sethe. Eventually, Denver decided to save her helpless mother, stepped out of 124, which had restrained her for eighteen years and sought help from the outside world.

Toni Morrison described the life of Negros through bitter but beautiful words, which included the skillful use of symbols. The color red was the most striking symbol in the novel. In general, red represents passion or sun. Toni Morrison tended to use color to represent deeper feeling or emotion. The Bluest Eye, which was another renowned book of her, was a perfect example as well. Back to Beloved, color red was more profound than its traditional meaning. The red ribbon that Stamp Paid thought was a cardinal feather in the river turned out to be a red ribbon knotted around a curl of wet woolly hair and cling to its bit of scalp (Byatt, 2006, p. xix). After that, he understood Baby Suggs’s preoccupation with color and why Baby Suggs said she “want to fix on something harmless in this world” (Morrison, 1987, p. 206). Stamp Paid hoped she “never fixed on red” (Morrison, 1987, p. 209). The chokecherry tree was a prominent symbol as well. Traditionally, it represented a common plant, but in this novel, it represented a horrible scar on Sethe’s back that caused by schoolteacher’s repulsive nephew.

One significant theme throughout this novel was the definition of freedom and love. These two nouns also closely connected. Sethe once told Paul D that she could not love her children properly in Kentucky because she could not keep them from becoming slaves and failed to provide what her children needed desperately. Paul D knew exactly what Sethe meant. “To get to a place where you could love anything you choose–not to need permission for desire–well now, that was freedom” (Morrison, 1987, p. 189). In contrast with Sethe’s thick love, Paul D viewed love in a more melancholy way. He knew perfectly well that everything belonged to the men who had the guns. “So you protected yourself and loved small. Picked the tiniest stars out of the sky to own. A woman, a child, a brother–a big love like that would split you wide open in Alfred, Georgia” (Morrison, 1987, p. 189). As a result, Paul D shut up his red heart in his rusted tobacco box in order to survive in that particular context.

A writer from New York Times said: “Beloved is, among other things, a ghost story” (Atwood, 1987, Para. 3). Unfortunately, I cannot agree with it. In my opinion, Toni Morrison only used ghost as an element to illustrate how harmful and reprehensible slavery was. Essentially, Beloved demonstrated that certain trauma, for example, the chokecherry tree on Sethe’s back, cannot be cured by time. “I shall call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.” (Romans 9:25). I hope one day, the chokecherry tree will burst into blossom. One day, her beloved will be loved. One day, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” (King, 1963, p. 5).

 I strongly recommend this novel because “this is not a story to pass on, meaning not a story to pass by” (Anatol, 2005, para. 7). We all need to remember this story, for the sixty million people who died during the nefarious Middle Passage. For the people who been tortured and persecuted.

Was Sethe’s love too thick? “Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all” (Morrison, 1987, p. 191).

References

Anatol, G. (2005). [Review of the book Beloved]. Retrieved from

www2.ku.edu/~langmtrs/lmII/discussions/beloved.html

Atwood, M. (1987). [Review of the book Beloved]. The New York Times. Retrieved from movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/01/11/home/8212.html

King, M. (1963). I Have A Dream. Retrieved from

archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

Morrison, T. (1987, September 13). Beloved. Retrieved from

is.muni.cz/el/1421/podzim2005/AJ25022/beloved.pdf