In Morrison’s Beloved, Sethe’s desire and aggravation to forget the past is evident. Suddenly when everyone at 124 is innocuously greeted with the presence of Beloved, the past becomes more difficult to evade, not only for Sethe but others as well. Beloved’s being, animate or not, inflicts the inevitability of complete parting from the past and the necessity to confront it. As the communication increases between those at 124 and Beloved, deliberately repressed feelings begin to reappear into their memories. For Sethe, images of events such as: her mother’s death and sounds of the African language once spoken to her as a child, begin to inundate her previously empty thoughts. Forceful and phantom-like, Beloved uses her infantile influence and, at times, coquettish manners as the driving force to unlocking various self-hidden memories.
Connections can be drawn between Beloved’s presence, and Morrison’s explication of the slave narrative. For slaves and former slaves, speech often takes the form of song or metaphor. For example, Paul D is unable to talk about his degrading experiences, however could express them through song. Using the images of stolen milk and a chokecherry tree, Sethe uses a sort of circumlocution to describe the violations and beatings. Because words can’t be conveyed without deathly consequence, stylized expression becomes the way to secretly vent anger or criticism. Thus, artistic expression becomes a matter of survival thus cultivates a sense of previously stripped humanity for slaves and former slaves.
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