Beloved

Throughout Toni Morrison’s Beloved, there is much conflict. Practically all the novel’s characters have been abused both mentally and physically at some point. Protagonist Sethe can never shake her past away—the one filled with innumerable hardships including her own murder of Beloved, her third child. In the present, Beloved incarnates herself in a mature woman’s body and returns from the dead to try and win back Sethe’s affection. Beloved does not fully understand the justification for her death (and neither do the rest of Sethe’s community) and is constantly trying to please her mother. From here, my question becomes more pertinent. It all depends on the interpretation of the word “government,” though. In the novel, the body which possesses the most power and influences the most characters is each individual’s past. All characters are tormented by ugly histories, giving validity to Denver’s claim that nothing ever dies. Slavery was vicious and Morrison makes this very clear. What governs Sethe, Paul D, Denver, and Beloved the most does not necessarily have positive consequences though. The past is here to stay and its memory is the thing that drives Beloved to almost choke Sethe to death and breaks open Paul D’s Tobacco Tin heart. What has happened in the past is so influential on Morrison’s plot that it creates a kind of chaos, especially in the last two chapters. There is no peace, only an angry embodiment of Beloved resurrecting horrible memories and causing conflict. In the context of Beloved, I conclude that it is government which actually creates disorder. By extension, government is not necessary for the existence of peace.