Sethe's Loss In Beloved

Throughout Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Sethe struggled to move on from her past. The pain that came from her memories hindered her ability to move on. In the book, in order to prevent her newly born Beloved from living life as a slave, Sethe slit the baby’s throat. However, this proved detrimental in the end as Beloved came back to haunt Sethe. Beloved's return causes destruction in Sethe's life because it shackles her to the past and prevents her from moving forward due to the resurfacing pain of the birth of Denver through imagery, the brutal life she lived as a slave, and coming to the horrific understanding of her mother’s hanging.

For every mother, there is no greater pain than giving birth. The moment Sethe saw Beloved, it triggered the

Beloved focused her attention to the rough past of Sethe’s life. She demanded that Sethe tell her these stories that brought so much pain to Sethe, “‘Tell me,’ said Beloved, smiling a wide happy smile, ‘Tell me your diamonds,’” (Morrison.69). Like a child needing to be fed, Beloved was fed with the arduous stories of Sethe’s past. By retelling the memories of her past, it forced Sethe to reopen the hidden wounds that lay within her heart, “...because every mention of her past life hurt. Everything in it was painful or lost,” (Morrison.69). All the feelings of worthlessness and the horrific beatings that she went through resurfaced. Earlier in the book, Morrison took the time to use imagery of Sethe’s scars that were left from the whippings she had received as a slave, “It’s a tree, Lu. A chokecherry tree. See, here’s the trunk-it’s red and split wide open, full of sap, and this here’s the parting for the branches. You got a mighty lot of branches. Leaves, too, look like, and dern if these ain’t blossoms. Tiny little cherry blossoms, just as white,” (Morrison.69). The imagery implied here was the description of the tree on Sethe’s back which was a representation of her scars due to being whipped as a slave. She cleverly depicted the trunks and and leaves as scars, and the white of the cherry blossoms as her scar tissue. This shows the reader how painful the floggings must have