Desire In Toni Morrison's Beloved

Improved Essays
Desire, often defined as a sense of longing or an emotional craving, is at its core, a driving force in each of our lives. No one lives without desire. It is such an innate facet of our humanity that there are literally religions based around the concept of living without desire. The concept itself has many connotations, ranging from simple desires like food and human interaction, to the extreme, being greed. It has been proposed that desire is a form of slavery each and every one of us is a victim to. No one can live without it and it controls us from the inside, out. In Beloved, the majority of the characters are ex-slaves, struggling to find the true meaning of freedom, however, due to desire for basic human needs (as they have been deprived …show more content…
When the reader is initially introduced to Sethe, she seems to be the classic matronly and comforting concept of a mother. As the narrative progresses, and the truth behind what happened to Beloved is revealed through Stamp Paid and Paul D’s conversation, one is forced to reconsider what this archetype truly means. Sethe’s actions do not make her any less of a mother and while infanticide is commonly (and with good reason) thought to negate a mother’s love, Sethe is an extraordinary case. While she does not speak of what she has done, it is clear that her actions continue to haunt her. Similarly to Paul D, Sethe’s desire to forget becomes her downfall. When Beloved, the supposed reincarnation of her slain daughter, appears on her doorstep, Sethe becomes a slave to her subconscious. Seeing what she presumes to be her daughter, all of the memories she wished to repress and move on from are unlocked, because previously, "To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay” (42). With the coming of the ghost of her lost daughter, Sethe’s desire metamorphosizes from emotional to material. She begins to buy luxury fabrics, foods, etc. in order to satisfy Beloved’s intense desire for anything material. This interaction is reminiscent of the concept of trying to buy someone’s love, in the sense that Sethe caters to every want and need Beloved has in order to make up for the past in the

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    The theme primarily focused on in this analytical response on Beloved is the idea of freedom. Rhetorically, this means many things; freedom from slavery; freedom from tyranny; freedom from persecution, freedom from horrible past events. Freedom to speak one's mind and express themselves; freedom of religion; freedom with security, and freedom from danger and the fear that comes with it. Freedom in Beloved is a mixed area, a gray area that is. It focuses on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual devastation that all slaves have suffered from.…

    • 1411 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Beloved, one of the numerous prestigious books written by Toni Morrison, is popularly known for its implicit depiction of the African American experiences during slavery. One of the numerous and predominant agonizing experiences was the sexual abuse of the slaves. Most of the whites (slave masters) used their superiority and power to overwhelm the opinion and wish of the slaves especially sexually. These actions exhibited by the whites had a lot of consequences on the slaves. The slaves were left with little or no choice but to adhere to these acts.…

    • 861 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Past trauma is not easily forgotten because of its need to be acknowledged and accepted. The novel Beloved by Toni Morrison explores the killing and haunting happening in 124. Sethe, Denver, and Paul D deal with the consequences of eliminating the presence for it only to be replaced by a physical presence of the same person, Beloved, as it seems. Although Beloved only comes into contact with three people, her presence affects the entire town, prompting them to examine how slavery affected them and how they dealt with it. Only as the story progresses can other characters begin to comprehend the reasons that led Sethe to murder her baby.…

    • 1770 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Her action is considered as a taboo by the community, which jeopardizes her membership within the community. The members of the community quietly withdraw their support for Sethe when she needs them the most. It is the lack of support from her community that creates Sethe’s isolation. She struggles to free herself of the burden that causes a division between her and the rest of the…

    • 1773 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    The novel Beloved, written by Toni Morrison, follows the lives of those who survived the horrors of slavery and how these experiences affect their decisions/actions in the future. Each character faced different types of mistreatment due to slavery, whether it was mentally or physically, that caused a significant impact to their lives. All these mistreatments the characters had to face had caused them to act a certain way in the future. Morrison would use multiple literary device in each character to show what each character had to face when they were slaves and that would allow the character to think their action in the future was justifiable weather it was morally right or if it was morally wrong. Throughout the book, multiple literary devices…

    • 1487 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    This novel Beloved by Toni Morrison Sethe is the main character that has many different stages in which she changes her state of mind. Seth peaked my interest because she changes throughout the novel so dramatically. Everything that occurred in her life has influenced her state of mind. Sethe apperces to be strong slave women that works hard to survive with her daughter Denver.…

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout Beloved by Toni Morrison, the role that men play, both as a presence and as an absence, is highly explored by Morrison. Even though the main characters are women, their stories would drastically have differed if the men’s roles throughout were either more present or, on the contrary, more absent. Major male characters that impacted Sethe, Beloved, and Denver’s life in intensely different ways include Halle, Paul D, and the Schoolteacher. Overall, despite the lack of a major male character, the role of men is crucial in order to develop the story for all of the women roles. To begin, Morrison introduced Halle as one of the “Sweet Home men.”…

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Usually when we refer to the word 'freedom ' we always emphasize on 'freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of liberty. Freedom of love is always unvoiced as one of the main characteristic of life. And as we read Morrison 's book 'Beloved ', she depicts Sethe as a slave mother who escapes slavery by fleeing the plantation, and, for the first time, has a taste of freedom, and most importantly, to be free to love. Furthermore, that taste of freedom to love becomes compulsive when she finally reunites with her kids. She is able to freely love her kids, and determines to have a nurturing relationship with her them.…

    • 1154 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    As humans, we’re almost all hardwired to search for love. Love is something that is said to be one of the most sought-after things in life. Love comes in the form of lovers, family, friends, and even self-love. To some, love is the saving grace by which people can find redemption. To others, love is a prison, something that creates weaknesses in people.…

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Dehumanization In Beloved

    • 2093 Words
    • 9 Pages

    His act of recording the slaves’ actions in his notebook and teaching his observations to his students further emphasize the degradation of Sethe’s identity; he uses his own observations based on his own interpretation of them because of the way he treats and views them due to slavery and creates a whole other identity for her. She had to face the brutal acts in order for her owner to feel satisfied that she is being treated as how she is viewed, as an animal. His need to feel and be superior in the time of slavery causes him to use violence to reduce Sethe’s position as a slave into one of an animal so that he has control over her. In doing so, Sethe is left helpless and scarred as she is unable to fight back due to her inability to understand her own identity and role in the society, resulting in her feeling isolated and alienated from everyone else. In telling Paul D what happened to her before she left Sweet Home, she explains how, “those boys came in there and took my milk...…

    • 2093 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    PTSD and Beloved PTSD better known as post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental health issue which is triggered by traumatizing events witnessed or that have occurred. Such symptoms can be lack of body function, emotional shutdown, and anxiety. In the novel Beloved this illness is displayed as live characters that have to overcome a traumatic effect that slavery left them with. Beloved incorporates PTSD into Seth, Denver, and Paul D who have to overcome the effects of slavery and future generations. First of all three Sethe portrays the strongest symptoms of PTSD and holds true due to her symptoms consisting of actual PTSD symptoms in Beloved.…

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    She would always remember Beloved and would never run away from a problem for the rest of her life. Sethe would also welcome Beloved at any time. Overall, Sethe embraced her origins and let memories help her make…

    • 111 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Beloved is obsessed with Sethe and why she was murdered by her own mother, and Sethe is obsessed with having her baby back in her life. Beloved brings back memories of Sethe's traumatic days as a slave. Sethe is traumatized by her memories of when she was molested and tortured, causing her to dehumanize herself. Beloved revives the horrible events that have happened in Sethe's life, while forcing her to face them and come to terms with what has happened to her. While Beloved is causing Sethe to re-experience her days as a slave, she begins to act like Sethe, much like a daughter strives to be like her mother.…

    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Slavery, racism, and prejudice are defined by the cruelty and the pain that resulted from it. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, acts of cruelty are continuously seen throughout the novel through the stories of the main characters that were affected by the institution of slavery either indirectly or directly. The cruelty of white supremacy plays a crucial role in shaping the lives and behaviors of Africans Americans and it caused them to commit cruel acts themselves. The pain, torture, and suffering that the African American characters go through in this novel are because of the side effects of white supremacy. The inhumanity that occurred because of the institution of slavery and the belief of white supremacy played a defining role in…

    • 1051 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays