Toni Morrison effectively provides reasons for the behaviour of her magical realism and gothic horror novel characters via her style of writing and the representation of them. Beloved is mainly written in third-person omniscient. However, Morrison’s novel is written in a constant flux, changes in point of view and narrators. This in course outcomes to repetition used to reveal other perspectives and the importance of key events, as well as to carry out a main symbol or notion. Beloved is filled with symbols in which she represents her characters with, bringing out some colour in them – colour being a main theme.
Point of view in a novel establishes how much the reader engages with the characters. Morrison begins the novel in third-person omniscient, immediately introducing the characters of the novel but with no detailed descriptions. The first page of the novel gives the reader a brief explanation of what had happened, and the cause for a gloomy atmosphere and a tone of fright that is carried throughout. It also sets up the significance of the past, before Baby Suggs died and Sethe’s two sons ran away, which is revealed in Morrison’s use of flashbacks.Sethe is haunted by her memories of her past as a slave as well as the ghost of her dead daughter. Morrison incorporates a change of point of view for Sethe to reveal her inability to let go of the past; in one page, she uses both first person point of view and third person limited to do so.
“I don’t want to know or have to remember that … But her brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day. ” (Page 83)Flashbacks of the past are a key element to reveal what the character has been through, which then implements their decision making. Slavery is the main theme in Beloved and it is set after the time period of the emancipation of slaves.
Morrison reveals how slavery has one way or another affected each and every character in her novel. Through this she portrays the importance of the relationships between a mother and her child; how slavery has come between that, denying black mothers of their maternal love. Sethe’s mother, ma’am and her mother in-law, Baby Suggs were “breeders” who became ambivalent toward their own offspring.However, Sethe’s flashback of her mother reveals that ma’am to some extent did love her in that she was a product of a loving union. “Without names, she threw them.
You she gave the name of the black man. She put her arms around him. ” (Page 74) But as a young girl, who watched her own mother being hanged, can only uphold suspicions against her own mother. Such suspicions like her mother attempting to run away from slavery, but more importantly to Sethe, to abandon her and leave her to fend for herself against the horrors of slavery.Through Sethe, Morrison portrays a different kind of mother, a mother whose “love is too thick” (Page 193) and whose controversial decision had left are large impact on those around her and a moral opinion from the reader.
The abandonment from her own mother explains Sethe’s choices as a mother; her determination to do everything she can to protect her children from slavery. When she was faced with the situation where her children were going to be taken away from her, Sethe chose to free them through death rather than allow them to go through the same suffering as she did.In her mind, saving her children from slavery by killing them was the ultimate expression of a mother’s love. “…motherlove was a killer. ” (Page 155) Sethe only successfully killed her third child out of the four she had, a baby girl who she named Beloved.
Morrison uses symbolism to reveal the nature of Beloved, who is the focus of the magical realism in the novel. The significance of her being the third child is portrayed in the house number, 124, in that the number three is absent. The house itself can be a representation of Beloved, “when 124 was alive” (Page 112) for it is written in context of before her death.The “pool of red undulating light” (Page 10) Paul D sees when he enters the house can be associated with Beloved’s blood after Sethe had cut her throat. Also, the connotations of the colour red reflect danger and evil, such behaviour of Beloved’s when she resurrects can be considered evil. She fixes Paul D to make love to her.
Beloved is still a child in that she was only of the age of two when she died, and when she resurrects she behaves “…like a two-year old. ” (Page 116) So in her defence, she may have just been curious.However, this may also be interpreted to be an intentional act to create a wedge between Sethe and her new happiness. Beloved’s resurrection in general can be seen as a return for revenge.
Beloved also does not deny Sethe’s accusation of her choking Sethe and blames it on “the circle of iron. ” (Page 119) Morrison cleverly creates links between the theme of slavery and colour with her characters. The element of iron represents slavery as well as Sethe. The association between the two is how Sethe is haunted by the past of her slavery. However, iron is also used figuratively as a symbol of firmness, strength and resistance.
She was known as “the one with iron eyes and backbone to match. ” (Page 10) Beloved’s response to Sethe’s accusation is clever in that Sethe was strangled by slavery to the point where it had “punched the glittering iron out of Sethe’s eyes…” (Page 11) Sethe’s back that was severely wounded left scars that were described to look like a choke tree, however, in reference to iron and since it was caused by slavery Paul D describes it as “the wrought-iron maze” (Page 25) Paul D, himself, is a victim of iron as he was chained up and had a bit, which is made out of iron and intended for horses, in his mouth.Paul D possessed a tobacco tin as his heart where he buried his feelings in, but then discovers “red heart” (Page 138) which represents feeling and emotion. Another positive outlook on the colour red is from Amy Denver, a white girl who assisted Sethe give birth to Denver, conveys an image of hope and a brighter future as she in search of red velvet.
Beloved demonstrates Toni Morrison’s skill of creating such depth characters that shoulder the horrific burden of slavery’s hidden sins. The constant flux of style of writing presenting insight from all directions and the clever use of symbols and motifs that are related to the main themes of the novel, slavery and colour, that are carried out to the very end of the novel created an effectively convincing novel.
