the home, but Sethe says otherwise because she sees Beloved, all grown and alive,

instead of the pain of when Sethe murdered her. [16] At the end of the book, Beloved is
gone and Paul D encourages Sethe to love herself instead.

Major characters[edit]
Sethe[edit]
Sethe is the protagonist of the novel. She escaped slavery from a plantation called
Sweet Home. She lives in the house named 124 (a house on 124 Bluestone Rd., but
referred to only as "124") which is believed to be haunted because she killed her infant
child there. Her two sons have fled because of the haunting, and she resides in the
house with her daughter Denver. She is motherly and will do anything to protect her
children from suffering the same abuses she experienced when she was enslaved.
Sethe is greatly influenced by her repression of the trauma she endured,; she lives with
"a tree on her back", scars from being whipped. Her character is resilient, yet defined by
her traumatic past. She was 19 years old when Denver was born, making her birth year
to be 1836.
Beloved[edit]
The opaque understanding of Beloved is central to the novel. She is a young woman
who mysteriously appears from a body of water near Sethe's house, and is discovered
soaking wet on the doorstep by Sethe, Paul D, and Denver, on their return from visiting
the fair; they take her in. She is widely believed to be the murdered baby who haunted
124, as the haunting ends when she arrives, and in many ways she behaves like a child.
As also mentioned, a young woman enslaved by a White man nearby had escaped, and
Beloved recounts stories of past slaves, including Sethe's mother. Morrison stated that
the character Beloved is the daughter Sethe killed. [17] The murdered baby was unnamed,
so her name is derived from the engraving on Sethe's murdered baby's tombstone,
which simply read "Beloved" because Sethe could not afford to engrave the word
"Dearly" or anything else. Beloved becomes a catalyst to bring repressed trauma of the
family to the surface, but also creates madness in the house and slowly depletes Sethe.
Paul D[edit]
Paul D retains his slave name; most of the enslaved men at Sweet Home were named
Paul. He also retains many painful memories from enslavement and being forced to live
in a chain gang; he had been moving around continuously before arriving at 124. [18] He
has a "tobacco tin" for a heart, in which he contains his painful memories, until Beloved
opens it. Years after their time together at Sweet Home, Paul D and Sethe reunite and
begin a romantic relationship. He acts fatherly towards Denver and is the first to be
suspicious of Beloved. Despite their long past, he fails to understand Sethe fully
because of her motherhood and because of the many years that had passed since.
Denver[edit]
Denver is Sethe's only child who remains at House 124. Isolated from her community
after Beloved's killing, Denver forms a close bond with her mother. Upon Beloved's
arrival, Denver watches as her sister's ghost begins to exhibit demonic activity. Although
introduced as a childish character, Denver develops into a protective woman throughout
the novel. In the final chapters, Denver fights not only for her personal independence,
but also for her mother's wellbeing, breaking the cycle of isolation at House 124. She is
18 years old at the beginning of the novel.
Baby Suggs[edit]
Baby Suggs is Sethe's mother-in-law. Her son Halle worked to buy her freedom, after
which she travels to Cincinnati and establishes herself as a respected leader in the
community, preaching for the Black people to love themselves because other people will
not. This respect turns sour after she turns some food into a feast, earning their envy, as
well as Sethe's act of infanticide. Baby Suggs retires to her bed, where she thinks about
pretty colors for the rest of her life. She dies at 70 in the beginning of the book, 8 years
before the main events.
Halle[edit]
Halle is the son of Baby Suggs, the husband of Sethe and father of her children. Sethe
and he were married in Sweet Home, yet they got separated during her escape. He is
only mentioned in flashbacks. Paul D was the last to see Halle, churning butter at Sweet
Home. He is presumed to have gone mad after seeing residents of Sweet Home
violating Sethe. He is hardworking and good, qualities that Paul D sees in Denver at the
end of the book, but ones that Baby Suggs fears make him a target.
Schoolteacher[edit]
Schoolteacher is the primary discipliner, violent, abusive, and cruel to the people he
enslaved at Sweet Home, whom he views as animals. He comes for Sethe following her
escape, but she kills her daughter and is arrested, instead. [18]
Amy Denver[edit]
Amy Denver is a young White girl who finds Sethe desperately trying to make her way to
safety after her escape from Sweet Home, trying to get to Boston herself. Sethe is
extremely pregnant at the time, and her feet are bleeding badly from the travel. Amy
helps nurture her and deliver Sethe's daughter on a small boat, and Sethe names the
child Denver after her.

Adaptations[edit]
In 1998, the novel was made into a film directed by Jonathan Demme, and produced by
and starring Oprah Winfrey.
In January 2016, Beloved was broadcast in 10 episodes by BBC Radio 4 as part of
its 15 Minute Drama programme. The radio series was adapted by Patricia Cumper.[19]

Legacy[edit]
Beloved received the Frederic G. Melcher Book Award, which is named for an editor
of Publishers Weekly. In accepting the award on October 12, 1988, Morrison said that
"[t]here is no suitable memorial or plaque or wreath or wall or park or skyscraper lobby"
honoring the memory of the human beings forced into slavery and brought to the United
States.[20] "There's no small bench by the road," she continued. "And because such a
place doesn't exist (that I know of), the book had to." [20] Inspired by her remarks, the Toni
Morrison Society began to install benches at significant sites in the history of slavery in
America.[21] The New York Times reported that the first 'bench by the road' was dedicated
on July 26, 2008, on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, the place of entry for some 40%
of the enslaved Africans brought to the United States. Morrison said she was extremely
moved by the memorial.[20][22] In 2017, the 21st bench was placed at the Library of
Congress. It is dedicated to Daniel Alexander Payne Murray (1852–1925), the first
African-American assistant librarian of Congress.[23]
The novel received the seventh annual Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and
Human Rights Book Award in 1988, given to a novelist who "most faithfully and
forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy's purposes—his concern for the poor and the
powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent
society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy
can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity." [24]
Critical reception[edit]
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The publication of Beloved in 1987 resulted in the greatest acclaim yet for Morrison.
Although nominated for the National Book Award, it did not win, and 48 African-
American writers and critics—including Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Jayne
Cortez, Angela Davis, Ernest J. Gaines, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Rosa Guy, June
Jordan, Paule Marshall, Louise Meriwether, Eugene Redmond, Sonia Sanchez, Quincy
Troupe, John Edgar Wideman, and John A. Williams—signed a letter of protest that was
published in The New York Times Book Review on January 24, 1988.[25][26] Yet later in
1988 Beloved did receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, [27] as well as the Robert F.
Kennedy Memorial Book Award, the Melcher Book Award, the Lyndhurst Foundation
Award, and the Elmer Holmes Bobst Award.[28]
Despite its popularity and status as one of Morrison's most accomplished
novels, Beloved has never been universally hailed as a success. Some reviewers have
excoriated the novel for what they consider its excessive sentimentality and
sensationalistic depiction of the horrors of slavery, including its characterization of the
slave trade as a Holocaust-like genocide. Others, while concurring that Beloved is at
times overwritten, have lauded the novel as a profound and extraordinary act of
imagination. Noting the work's mythic dimensions and political focus, these
commentators have treated the novel as an exploration of family, trauma, and the
repression of memory as well as an attempt to restore the historical record and give
voice to the collective memory of African Americans. Indeed, critics and Morrison herself
have indicated that the controversial epigraph to Beloved, "60 million and more", is
drawn from a number of studies on the African slave trade, which estimate that
approximately half of each ship's "cargo" perished in transit to America.
Scholars have additionally debated the nature of the character Beloved, arguing whether
she is actually a ghost or a real person. Numerous reviews, assuming Beloved to be a
supernatural incarnation of Sethe's daughter, have subsequently faulted Beloved as an
unconvincing and confusing ghost story. Elizabeth B. House, however, has argued that
Beloved is not a ghost, and the novel is actually a story of two probable instances of
mistaken identity.[29] Beloved is haunted by the loss of her African parents and thus
comes to believe that Sethe is her mother. Sethe longs for her dead daughter and is
rather easily convinced that Beloved is the child she has lost. Such an interpretation,
House contends, clears up many puzzling aspects of the novel and emphasizes
Morrison's concern with familial ties.[28]
Since the late 1970s, the focus on Morrison's representation of African-American
experience and history has been strong. The idea that writing acts as a means of
healing or recovery is a strain in many of these studies. Timothy Powell, for instance,
argues that Morrison's recovery of a Black logos rewrites blackness as "affirmation,
presence, and good",[30] while Theodore O. Mason, Jr., suggests that Morrison's stories
unite communities.[31]
Many critics explore memory, or what Beloved’s Sethe calls "rememory", in this light.
Susan Bowers places Morrison in a "long tradition of African American apocalyptic
writing" that looks back in time, "unveiling" the horrors of the past in order to "transform"
them.[32] Several critics have interpreted Morrison's representations of trauma and
memory through a psychoanalytic framework. Ashraf H. A. Rushdy explores how "primal
scenes" in Morrison's novels are "an opportunity and affective agency for self-discovery
through memory" and "rememory".[33] As Jill Matus argues, however, Morrison's
representations of trauma are "never simply curative": in raising the ghosts of the past to
banish or memorialize them, the texts potentially "provoke readers to the vicarious
experience of trauma and act as a means of transmission". [34] Ann Snitow's reaction
to Beloved neatly illustrates how Morrison criticism began to evolve and move toward
new modes of interpretation. In her 1987 review of Beloved, Snitow argues that Beloved,
the ghost at the center of the narrative, is "too light" and "hollow", rendering the entire
novel "airless". Snitow changed her position after reading criticism that
interpreted Beloved in a different way, seeing something more complicated and
burdened than a literal ghost, something requiring different forms of creative expression
and critical interpretation. The conflicts at work here are ideological, as well as critical;
they concern the definition and evaluation of American and African-American literature,
the relationship between art and politics, and the tension between recognition and
appropriation.[35]
In defining Morrison's texts as African-American literature, critics have become more
attentive to historical and social context and to the way Morrison's fiction engages with
specific places and moments in time. As Jennings observes, many of Morrison's novels
are set in isolated Black communities where African practices and belief systems are not
marginalized by a dominant White culture, but rather remain active, if perhaps
subconscious, forces shaping the community.[36] Matus comments that Morrison's later
novels "have been even more thoroughly focused on specific historical moments";
"through their engagement with the history of slavery and early twentieth-century
Harlem, [they] have imagined and memorialized aspects of black history that have been
forgotten or inadequately remembered".[34]
On November 5, 2019, the BBC News listed Beloved on its list of the 100 most
influential novels.[37]
Banning and controversy[edit]
Beloved has been banned from five U.S. schools since 2007. Common reasons for
censorship include bestiality, infanticide, sex, and violence. Twenty years after its
publication, in 1987, the novel was first banned from AP English classes at Eastern High
School in Louisville, Kentucky, because of the book's mention of bestiality, racism, and
sex. The book was banned because two parents complained that the book discussed
inappropriate parts about the antebellum slavery. [38] In 2017, Beloved was considered for
removal from the Fairfax County (VA) senior English reading list due to a parent's
complaint that "the book includes scenes of violent sex, including a gang rape, and was
too graphic and extreme for teenagers". [39] Parental concern about Beloved's content
inspired the Beloved Bill, legislation that, if passed, would require Virginia public schools
to notify parents of any "sexually explicit content" and provide an alternative assignment
if requested.[40]

Awards[edit]
 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1988[41]
 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, 1988[42]
 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award
 Melcher Book Award
 Lyndhurst Foundation Award
 Elmer Holmes Bobst Award

References[edit]
1. ^ Goulimar, Pelagia, "Beloved (1987)", in Toni Morrison, Routledge,
2011, p. 81.
2. ^ Hevesi, Dennis (April 1, 1988). "Toni Morrison's Novel 'Beloved' Wins
the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction". The New York Times.
3. ^ "National Book Awards - 1987".  National Book Foundation.
Retrieved  January 14,  2014.
4. ^ "What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25
Years?", The New York Times, May 21, 2006.
5. ^ Angelo, Bonnie (May 22, 1987).  "Toni Morrison: The Pain of Being
Black".  Time  (subscription required). Time Inc. p. 4. ISSN 0040-781X.
Archived from the original  on April 1, 2007. Retrieved November
20, 2012.  Q.  Beloved  is dedicated to the 60 million who died as a
result of slavery. A staggering number – is this proved historically? A.
Some historians told me 200 million died. The smallest number I got
from anybody was 60 million ... A lot of people died.
6. ^ Demetrakopoulos, Stephanie A. (1992). "Maternal Bonds as
Devourers of Women's Individuation in Toni Morrison's
Beloved".  African American Review.  Indiana State University. 26 (1):
51–9. doi:10.2307/3042076. ISSN 1062-4783.  JSTOR  3042076.
7. ^ Schapiro, Barbara (1991). "The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of
Self in Toni Morrison's "Beloved"". Contemporary Literature. University
of Wisconsin Press.  32  (2): 194–
210. doi:10.2307/1208361. ISSN 1548-9949.  JSTOR  1208361.
8. ^ Koolish, Lynda (2001). ""To Be Loved and Cry Shame": A
Psychological Reading of Toni Morrison's "Beloved"". MELUS. Society
for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. 26 (4):
169–95.  doi:10.2307/3185546.  ISSN  1946-3170. JSTOR 3185546.
9. ^ Fulton, Lara Mary (1997). "An unblinking gaze: Readerly response-
ability and racial reconstructions in Toni Morrison's  The Bluest
Eye and Beloved" (M.A. thesis). Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier
University
10. ^ Boudreau, Kristin (1995). "Pain and the Unmaking of Self in Toni
Morrison's  Beloved".  Contemporary Literature.  University of Wisconsin
Press.  36  (3): 447–65.  doi:10.2307/1208829.  ISSN  1548-
9949. JSTOR 1208829.
11. ^ Jump up to:a b Sitter, Deborah Ayer (1992). "The Making of a Man:
Dialogic Meaning in Beloved". African American Review. 26 (1): 17–
29. doi:10.2307/3042073. JSTOR 3042073.
12. ^ Ng, Andrew Hock Soon (2011). "Toni Morrison's Beloved: Space,
Architecture, Trauma".  Symploke.  19  (1): 231–
245. doi:10.5250/symploke.19.1-2.0231. ISSN 1534-0627.  S2CID 142
820706.
13. ^ Tyler, Dennis (Summer 2017).  "Jim Crow's Disabilities: Racial Injury,
Immobility, and the "Terrible Handicap" in the Literature of James
Weldon Johnson". African American Review. 50 (2): 185–
201. doi:10.1353/afa.2017.0021. ISSN 1945-6182.  S2CID 164739095 
– via Project MUSE.
14. ^ Gorn, Elliott J. (1984). "Black Spirits: The Ghostlore of Afro-American
Slaves".  American Quarterly. 36 (4): 549–
565. doi:10.2307/2712750. JSTOR 2712750.
15. ^ Boudreau, Kristin (1995). "Pain and the Unmaking of Self in Toni
Morrison's "Beloved"".  Contemporary Literature.  36  (3): 447–
465. doi:10.2307/1208829. JSTOR 1208829.
16. ^ Jesser, Nancy (1999). "Violence, Home, and Community in Toni
Morrison's Beloved". African American Review. 33 (2): 325–
345. doi:10.2307/2901282. JSTOR 2901282.
17. ^ Gross, Rebecca (February 9, 2015). "Toni Morrison, on How
'Beloved' Came to Be". National Endowment for the Arts.
Retrieved  December 28, 2020.
18. ^ Jump up to:a b "SparkNotes: Beloved: Character
List". www.sparknotes.com. Retrieved June 12, 2017.
19. ^ "15 Minute Drama, Beloved Episode 1 of 10".  BBC Online.
Retrieved  January 4,  2016.
20. ^ Jump up to:a b c "A bench by the road", UU World, August 11, 2008.
21. ^ "Bench By The Road Project". The Toni Morrison Society.
Retrieved  December 28, 2020.
22. ^ Lee, Felicia R., "Bench of Memory at Slavery’s Gateway", The New
York Times, July 28, 2008.
 23. ^ Heller, Dave. "Another 'Bench by the Road' marks African-American
history — NewsWorks".  Newsworks.org. Retrieved April 28, 2017.
[permanent dead link]

24. ^ "Book Award Winners". Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice &
Human Rights. 2015. Archived from the original  on December 24,
2015. Retrieved December 24,  2015.
25. ^ McDowell, Edwin, "48 Black Writers Protest By Praising
Morrison", The New York Times, January 19, 1988.
26. ^ Troy, "Writers Demand Recognition for Toni Morrison (1988)",
AALBC.com, July 27, 2012.
27. ^ Eleanor Randolph, "Morrison Novel 'Beloved' Wins Pulitzer
Prize", The Washington Post, April 1, 1988.
28. ^ Jump up to:a b Giroux, Christopher; Brigham Narins (1995). "Beloved by
Toni Morrison". Contemporary Literary Criticism.  87: 261–311.
29. ^ House, Elizabeth B. (1990). "Toni Morrison's Ghost: The Beloved is
Not Beloved". Studies in American Fiction. 18 (1): 17–
26. doi:10.1353/saf.1990.0016.  ISSN  2158-5806.
30. ^ Powell, Timothy; David Middleton (1997). "Toni Morrison: The
Struggle to Depict the Black Figure on the White Page".  Toni
Morrison's Fiction: Contemporary Criticism: 45–59.
31. ^ Mason, Theodore O., Jr. (1990). "The Novelist as Conservator:
Stories and Comprehension in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon". In
Harold Bloom (ed.). Modern Critical Views Toni Morrison. New York:
Chelsea House Publishers. pp.  171–188.
32. ^ Bowers, Susan (1997). "Beloved and the New Apocalypse".  Toni
Morrison's Fiction: Contemporary Criticism: 209–230.
33. ^ Rushdy, Ashraf (1997). "'Rememory': Primal Scense and
Constructions in Toni Morrison's Novels". Toni Morrison's Fiction:
Contemporary Criticism: 135–164.
34. ^ Jump up to:a b Matus, Jill (1998). Toni Morrison. Manchester University
Press.
35. ^ Snitow, Ann (1993). "Death Duties: Toni Morrison Looks Back in
Sorrow". Toni Morrison: Critical Perspectives Past and Present: 26–32.
36. ^ Jennings, La Vinia Delois (2008). Toni Morrison and the Idea of
Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
37. ^ "100 'most inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News.
November 5, 2019. Retrieved November 10,  2019. The reveal
kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.
38. ^ Beloved, Banned, [1] "The History of the Banned Book", October 23,
2019.
39. ^ Titus, Ron, [2] "Banned Books By Year", July 20, 2017.
40. ^ American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, "Coalition to
Virginia Governor: Veto the 'Beloved' Bill", National Coalition Against
Censorship (NCAG), March 9, 2016.
41. ^ "Beloved, by Toni Morrison (Alfred A. Knopf)", The 1988 Pulitzer
Prize Winner in Fiction.
42. ^ "Toni Morrison | Beloved", The 82nd Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

External links[edit]
  Podcast of Toni Morrison discussing  Beloved on the
BBC's World Book Club
 Emily Temple, "75 Covers of Toni Morrison's Beloved From
Around the World"—In honor of the novel's 30th
anniversary. Literary Hub, September 18, 2017.
show

Works by Toni Morrison

show

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

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Slave narratives

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