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Victor Kalei Groberg

ENG 1010

Professor Blankenship

March 3, 2019

Beloved’s Theme on the Ideologies of “Love”

Following the main character Sethe, the reader retraces their footsteps along with the

protagonist in order to find the best route towards fulfillment of life, love and freedom by

reliving primary experiences of trauma from being a slave, running away from the slave trade,

and finding liberation and reconciliation with the carnage left behind from slavery. Throughout

the story of “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, the theme of "love" is portrayed in unconventional,

extreme ways that question the reader's internal capacity to differentiate the socially unorthodox

morals of right and wrong within the context of slavery.

This vague manifestation and allusion of love becomes skewed through the eyes of the

enslaved community in the sense that love is traditionalized to be a burden. The reader is told a

monologue from Baby Suggs (Sethe’s grandmother, who was born into slavery and managed to

escape through the financial payout provided of her son) and the problematic memory of her

past. The text reads, “‘I had eight [children]. Every one of them gone away from me… My first

born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread.” (pg. 6) In this,

Baby Suggs explains her struggle with the ability to connect and memorize her eight children;

she is unable to remember anything about her children except that one of them enjoyed the burnt

bottoms of bread. This tragic telling implies the notion that slaves were to believe that love was a

luxury too rich for their people to purchase.

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The book then further defines the loathing and resentment love brings within the stricken

confines of slavery. Upon learning about the personalities of the characters, specifically slaves, in

the book, the reader is situationalized in an argument between Sethe and Paul D (Sethe’s lover),

and their conflicting ideologies on parenting. The text recites, “‘Your love is too thick,’ he said.

‘Too thick?’ she said, ‘Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain't love at all.” (pg. 195) In this, the

traditional meta-moral values of love begin to unhinge as the question arises, “To what length

would you go to to love someone?” Slavery’s strangulating hold over the oppressed not only

shifts the thinking of what love is, but also challenges the lengths to what someone will do for

love.

At the climax of the book, it is revealed that Sethe gathered her four children in a shed to kill
them, as to not allow slave trappers to steal them. The passage states (from a slave trapper’s
perspective), “The three (now four - because she’d [Sethe] had one coming when she cut)
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1 they had hoped were alive and well enough to take back to Kentucky, take back and

raise properly to do the work Sweet Home desperately needed, were not. Two were lying open-

eyed in sawdust; a third pumped blood down the dress of the main one [Sethe].” (pg. 176) This

passage challenges the aspect of love in slavery through the extreme protest of Sethe

slaughtering her own kin as to revolt against the power held from the tyrannizer to the

tyrannized. The confirmation between either allowing her children be forced into slavery or to

kill them before they ever have the chance to experience it, creates a cataclysm for the meaning

of love.

Sethe was only successful in killing one of her children before being restrained and taken

to jail, yet the repercussion of Sethe’s choice left Denver (Sethe’s oldest daughter) devoted to

saving her sister Beloved (Sethe’s youngest daughter) at all costs. A passage from the novel

explains the loneliness Denver felt from being ostracized from her community, on behalf of her
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mother, and the devoted determination she has to love her younger sibling. The text reads,

“During the first days after Paul D moved in, Denver stayed in her emerald closet as long

as she could, lonely as a mountain and almost as big, thinking everybody had somebody but her,

thinking even a ghost’s company denied her. So when she saw the black dress with two unlaced

shoes beneath it she trembled with secret thanks. Whatever her power and however she used it,

Beloved was hers. Denver was alarmed by the harm she thought Beloved planned for Sethe, but

felt helpless to thwart it, so unrestricted was her need to love another. The display she witnessed

at the Clearing shamed her because the choice between Sethe and Beloved was without conflict.”

(pg. 123)

This is a representation of Denver’s love through the fear of Beloved’s safety from Sethe.

For Denver there is no lengths she wouldn’t travel to to keep Beloved safe, as overly relatable to

her mother. As though Denver did not live as a slave, she is still intinced to reciprocate the same

overwhelming trauma towards safety as her mother, except now the villain is Sethe and Denver

will be the hero.

Later in the story, the muse of Sethe, Denver and Beloved are combined to portray a

singular dialogue in where Sethe expounds upon her unnerving love for Beloved, Denver warns

Beloved to beware of Sethe, and where Beloved accentuates on the unrestricted boundaries of

affection she has towards her mother. The text recites, “I will protect you [Sethe to Beloved]. I
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want her face [Beloved to Sethe]. Don’t love her too much [Denver to Beloved]… Don’t fall

asleep when she braids your hair [Denver to Beloved].” (pg. 255) In this passage Denver calls

out to Beloved as to warn her about the dangers of loving Sethe, as trusting her love would result

in pain. The chain of slavery was physically removed from their family, but the same shackles of

trauma still renounce themselves in their lineage.

The boundaries between morality and love alter through the lens of the enslaved, to the

point of even complete abandonment of the feeling, morphation of the meaning of love, and

corrosion of acceptable responses to love. It is because of these allusive themes that define

“Beloved” by Toni Morrison as a book to recall to to expand one’s perspective of love, protection

and trust. What is given at face value is an arrogant summarization compared to the key events

that led to the execution of an action. It’s much simpler to headline the climax of this story as, “A

Crazy Black Cannibal Woman Kills Kin” than to elaborate on the previous traumas, experience

and knowledge that influenced Sethe to kill her children.

Work Cited
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Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York; Vintage Book,

1987. Print.