Symbolism throughout the novel Beloved

A detailed Summary of Symbolism throughout the novel Beloved


Beloved, a novel written by Toni Morrison is more than a fiction. When composing her book, Morrison used many different writing techniques to make it the best possible. One particular technique used throughout Beloved is symbolism. Symbolism is found in the number references used, nature and the characters portrayed.

Many numbers used in Beloved are actually more than what they are written out to be. A common number used, is the address of Sethe's home, 124 Bluestone Road. Their house, which use to be a railway station is located in the outskirts of Cincinnati, Ohio. The main character, Sethe had four children in her lifetime. Her house number indicates those four children, but leaves out the third born (being Beloved). Her remaining three children: Denver, Howard and Burglar are the ones resembled in the numeric address. Also in Beloved, single numbers like two, three and five show up in many different parts. The number two implies a unity (Livraghi). In this novel, two and four come up when Morrison relates to children and sex. Sex i


Symbolism is also found in nature throughout Beloved. Unlike the symbolism with numbers, nature is a more common topic to write about, which makes it harder to pick out the symbolism. On a few accounts though, the symbolism in nature does stand out. First, Seth's scars on her back are referred many times in the novel to a chokecherry tree. Also, Denver has a secret wooden box, implying it was made from a tree. She keeps things in there that are personal to her. One of them that is brought up is a bottle of perfume she stole from her mother. This symbolism of the wooden box and perfume implies that nature throughout the novel covers up the past and helps forget.

The last major topic of symbolism in this novel is in the characters. Many characters, even minor ones have a bit of symbolism in them. One of them, Sixo, who was known as the "wild man" (Morrison 11) began to plan his escape from slavery. Unfortunately he was caught and burned alive. In Beloved, Sixo represents all the slaves and their struggles. His name is African and is fro

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Approximate Word count = 711
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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