The use of folklore adds depth and life to any literary work. Folklore is the traditional beliefs, legends, and practices of people passed down orally. Bascom gives a more intelligent definition of folklore. According to Bascom,

In addition to its role in transmitting culture from one generation to another, and to providing ready rationalization when beliefs or attitudes are called into question, folklore is used in some societies to apply social pressure to those who would deviate from accepted norms. Moreover, even the function o

The ghost, Beloved, is the most obvious of all that could become and already is folklore in the novel. As soon as she is gone the stories start, "They forgot her like a bad dream. After they made up their tales, shaped and decorated them, those that saw her that day on the porch quickly and deliberately forgot her"(274). Every tale is different from the other, and each listener hearing it different from the next. Of course most of the folklore that we know today is passed on this way, and this is definitely "a story to pass on".

Morrison uses a ghost, Beloved, for her main source of myth and folklore in Beloved. "Beloved is clearly a ghost story, dealing with the "spiteful" or "sad" or "rebukel" spirit of a baby girl who died in a horrible way some years previously (Malmgreen, 191)." Ghosts appearing in stories normally is made out to be a bad sign. "Certainly in the black folk tradition, a ghost might occasionally appear among the living to indicate that all is well, to teach a lesson, or to guide the living to some good fortune, including buried treasures"(Harris, 141).

Narratives of African American folktales are told in many different ways. These folktales are mostly told among the adults. They are later passed on to their children when the timing is right. "Because of the high regard in which they are held and because they are considered as especially appropriate to adult life, African proverbs are highly effective in exercising social control"(Bascom, 295). These stories can be told from many people at on time or one "storyteller". "Circulatory is part of that oral tradition. Traditional African stories are usually told to an audience formal in a circle around. The storyteller, or the role of storyteller shifts from person to person around the story circle" (Page, 142).

The stories that Paul D tell are definitely folktales, but because they are folktales they are the more interesting than most other stories. The way Morrison uses Paul D to paint us a picture of what the slaves who escaped went through is folkloric if nothing. "Who, like him, had hidden in caves and fought owls for food; who, like him, had slept in trees in the day and walked at night"(66). "Watch dogs without teeth; steer bulls without horns; gelded workhorses whose neigh and whiny could not be translated into a language humans spoke"(125). Now we know he didn't actually fight the owls for food, but this is how stories of yesterday, become the folk tales of today.

Folklore is a popular trend in many societies. One reason for its popularity is because there are no rules for its creation. Folklore is neither good nor bad. Olrik states that, "... folklore must be measured by its own laws, not the laws of everyday life. Folklore does not have to obey any laws but its own"(140). He continues, "Folklore, because of its excessively rigid adherence to recurring forms and themes, makes excellent source material for those interested in discovering principles controlling human culture generally"(128).

f amusement cannot be accepted today as a complete answer, for it is apparent that beneath a good deal of humor lies a deeper meaning, and that folklore serves as a psychological escape from man repressions, not only sexual, which society imposes on the individual (Bascom, 33).

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Approximate Word count = 3032
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)