Sethe Relationship In Beloved

The mother-daughter relationship between Sethe and Beloved throughout Toni Morrison’s Beloved is complicated, with negative effects impacting the both of them. Throughout the novel Beloved seems to drain Sethe, physically and emotionally, and brings about an uncontrollable motherly need to please this daughter because of her guilt at murdering her baby for protection from slavery. Through the mirroring to the Biblical book of Song of Solomon, it adds this mystical component that makes the notion that Beloved could transcend from the grave back into Sethe’s life for love more plausible. Their relationship also leaves Beloved with identity issues that strips her of a normal womanly upbringing as she tries to figure out herself. This relationship

Beloved herself claims that she is Sethe’s, or rather, she says that “she is mine” (214). However the reader is left unsure of whom exactly Beloved is talking about. It can be assumed that Beloved is speaking about Sethe, but the “she” in this passage could be an informal “she,” referring to women race as a whole and it could be interpreted that Beloved is claiming the womanhood she never had a chance to live out in her original life. When she was murdered as an infant, Beloved was deprived of the experience of womanhood that is afforded to other women. Returned now, as a ghostly presence in the house, she is neither able to live out her life as a woman, or a true “she.” The text here builds the case that Beloved is fixated on Sethe. In this same passage, Beloved expresses the inability to separate herself from her mother and her identity becomes unclear, even to herself. In this way, Beloved represents the sexuality that is not able to come forth because of the abandonment at a young age by Sethe. The text simply says “She is mine,” (14) and goes on further to talk about the displacement from her mother, who in this specific section is the only individual called “she.” “I AM BELOVED, and she is mine” can be interpreted to say Sethe could both be representative of Beloved’s loss, and her confusion. This confusion can even be represented in Sethe’s name which is the name of an Egyptian god of confusion. By ending her life early, Sethe caused this level of confusion in Beloved trying to figure out her identity. Returning, and not being able to have lived out her life, but rather skipping ahead into womanhood, caused the displacement of identity and therefore Beloved became a mirror of what her own actions caused. In this way, Beloved becomes a reflection of Sethe’s own actions, and is not meant to represent the reflection of anyone