Toni Morrison's Beloved - The Prophetic Healer

The Prophetic Healer of Beloved

In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison creates Amy Denver’s character to serve as a prophetic healer. Amy speaks directly to Jesus, recites prophetic like wisdom, and possesses strange abilities to create good. Amy Denver was sent by a higher power to ensure that Sethe reached her well-deserved freedom; their meeting was anything but coincidental.

We are introduced to Amy Denver indirectly by Beloved’s curiosity. Perhaps Beloved wants to know just how this happy-go-lucky individual came about. After all, even Denver felt a strangeness about her birth that made her feel, “like a bill was owing somewhere… But who she owed or what to pay it with eluded her.” (77) Life’s mysteries do that. Suddenly the book takes us to the pitch of the Kentucky forest where Sethe is not only tired, scared and lost, but also completely alone. In times like these we feel an intense need for human contact. If and when we are rescued by a simple voice, and they are willing to extend themself, it seems to restore our faith in mankind and life is living. “Come here Jesus,” Amy calmly tells Sethe. Let us not forget the circumstances in which Sethe is in the midst of. These are the words she desires, rather deserves to hear. But more importantly, why does Amy call Sethe such a divine name? Surely one could theorize that Sethe acts as Jesus in “Beloved” but we will save that for someone else. Still, one must not lose sight of the fact that Amy sees Sethe. By this I mean Amy deeply perceives a gentle soul containing struggle, sorrow, hope and goodness. Furthermore, Amy also creates “Lu” ...

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...creation to be called Denver. In the bible each creation passage ends in the phrase, "And God saw that it was good.” Much in the same fashion Morrison admits in “Beloved” that both Amy and Sethe created, “appropriately and well.” She alludes to this Bible ending while keeping respect for the verbatim verse.

Amy Denver’s character was created to act as prophet in the freedom and creation of Sethe and Denver. Together, all three are not just ordinary people. Amy can speak prophetically and create with nature’s help while nature adapts to her needs. She speaks truth, while gently healing both physical and mental wounds. In short, she is one of those people we see and can’t keep our eyes off. Sethe too, follows her motions and trusts an Anglo-Saxon human for the first time.