Beloved is about a woman named Sethe, now living in the Reconstruction-era farming country of Ohio. Proud and beautiful, she escaped from slavery, but is haunted by its heritage. She must deal with this haunted life on every level, from the fires of the flesh to the heartbreaking challenges to the spirit. Set in rural Ohio several years after the Civil War, this profoundly affecting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath is Toni Morrison's greatest novel, a dazzling achievement. The story traces Sethe's history back and forth through time, both as a free woman and as a young slave on a plantation known as Sweet Home. When another former slave, Paul D wanders into Sethe's life, he stirs up memories of her past. Paul D wants to help her forget those memories, but her back carries horrible scars from the beatings of a lifetime under the control of another man, making forge

What significance does the ghost of Sethe's dead baby play in this story? Are the references to this ghost simply just symbolic of the way the family deals with its death and the resulting horror that remains in their memories? Or does anyone who enters the house on Bluestone Road actually witness the presence of paranormal activities?

"(My aim was to create)... a tone in which I could blend the acceptance of the supernatural and a profound rootedness in the real world at the same time with neither taking precedence over the other. It is indicative of the cosmology, the way in which Black people looked at the world. We are very practical people, very down-to-earth, even shrewd people. But within that practicality we also accepted what I suppose could be called superstition and magic, which is another way of knowing things. But to blend these two worlds together at the same time was enhancing, not limiting."

tting almost impossible. The ghost of a baby daughter also keeps Sethe's memories alive, a spirit bent on evil and destruction. One day, a strange woman appears in Sethe's yard, covered in insects and speaking in a "possessed" voice, shall we say. This strange woman is called Beloved. Sethe takes Beloved in and ignores her disgusting behaviors like vomiting on everything and wetting the bed and trying to seduce Paul D.

The fact that three of the four main characters are female causes one to question whether Beloved is a story about black's issues or women's issues. Is Toni Morrison telling the story of a woman's or an ex-slave's life? While there is no doubting that slavery and all its ugliness is the cause of Sethe being in the situation she is, one cannot dismiss the

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Approximate Word count = 1141
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)