In the story Beloved written by Toni Morrison, the main protagonist is a black woman named Sethe who escapes from slavery and lives in Ohio several years after the Civil War. Personally I do not like how the beginning of the book is set up and the story line is difficult to relate to. Morrison introduces a setting and characters which are confusing and difficult to understand during the first read. My first impression of Sethe is neutral; I cannot say that she is distasteful but at the same time I certainly cannot relate to her. Sethe has complicated characteristics which are difficult to describe. She seems to live without a purpose, does not have any of her thoughts together, and keeps living in the past. However, she is confident and undisturbed by many things that would be distasteful to most people. Unfortunately, I would actually enjoy Sethe; however the narrator isn’t in sync with the characters and shows their point of view in a confusing way. Morrison confuses his readers by giving an imaginary setting such as a house haunted by a two-year-old baby that died and is “bringing forth hell” upon the house; then he switches to something very real and vivid such as Sethe’s seven brothers containing themselves from raping her sister by having intercourse with cows. In addition, the synopsis at the back of the novel says that Sethe is supposed to be a victim of slavery, yet the first chapters do not say anything about her imprisonment and misfortune. Furthermore, the introduction of the story is very disturbing as it is littered with incense and zoophilia. At first I thought that the author was referring to it on an imaginary level, however as the novel progresses Morrison describes it very literally. Even her own sons “held [her] down and took her milk” before they ran away from their haunted house. (p 21). Moreover, the characters are too different from the present day. I am not a narrow-minded person, nor an uneducated one; however Sethe seems like an unreal character with a “tree growing out of her back” (p 24). At first I thought that it was supposed to symbolize something deeper, but now I am truly confused because the narrator is so literal. In the end I predict that Sethe will evolve from a heart-chilling zombie, and hopefully become a warmer person.
Although Beloved switches between the extreme opposites of imaginary and literalism, the example of you have given of Morrison’s very literal writing, although vivid, does not seem that real at all. I would understand Morrison’s descriptions of Sethe’s brothers having intercourse with cows and her sons taking her milk as being a form of vulgar and slightly metaphoric imagery rather than a real recount of the truth. Perhaps the novel can be better understood with this viewpoint. Also, I see the tree growing out of Sethe’s back as a symbol of how she will forever be weighted down by how she endlessly provides for others. Like a tree that grows fruit, provides shade and cleans the air for everyone but is forever rooted to the ground, Sethe is a slave in the most common definition of the word but also one for her brothers and sons.
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