Where is the Power?

Throughout Toni Morrison's Beloved, the reader experiences a multitude of binaries addressed by Benjamin including Male/female and White/black. However, none of the characters from the 124 house is truly a figure of power besides in their own community. The only person from the home who seemed to possess power in their community was Baby Suggs, yet throughout the story the reader gets a greater understanding of how malleable that reality is when the group of power changes the environment. The Matrix of Domination attempts to portray how every person belongs to dominating groups as well as oppressed groups. Yet, there is still a slight disconnect between this theory and Denver. She does not belong to any group of power and occupies three qualities: woman, slave, and youth, which make her the oppressed in this novel. Beloved does not necessarily support the assertions of the Matrix of Domination and suggests that there are certain people who do not possess power in any context.