Throughout the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison, hundreds of complex themes slowly reveal themselves to the reader. One that seems very obvious is the way that Sethe’s love of Beloved drains her, as Beloved acts nearly like a parasite, Sethe slowly starving and withering away the longer that Beloved is there, while Beloved flourishes and even takes the form of a pregnant woman, which represents the pinnacle of fullness and exuberance. However, there are other relationships that represent the ways in which love, particularly a mother’s love, can be draining and threatening to the mother.

Baby Suggs is not Sethe’s mother, but her mother-in-law, and for much of the book, she acts as Sethe’s mother figure, living in her house and speaking to her as mothers generally speak to their children. It is very clear that Baby Suggs loves Sethe, especially in the flashbacks of the novel that occur prior to Beloved’s death at Sethe’s hands.

However, after Sethe’s death, Baby Suggs becomes drained and empty, literally- Toni Morrison very cleverly describes the ways in which Baby Suggs craves color, which establishes her as a very gray and dull character, in stark contrast to the ways that she appeared before, described as holy and full of life and hope. Sethe is not the only character drained by her love for her daughter: Baby Suggs, when she continues to love Sethe after she kills her own daughter, is also slowly emptied of her life until she inevitably dies.

In Beloved, Toni Morrison makes sure to put her readers in a perspective that people consider when talking about the institution of slavery, but not actually understand. She sought to humanize numbers, stories, and lives of enslaved people, and she did just that by using Beloved’s presence in the story. I like that she doesn’t just pose a possibility of Sethe killing Beloved, but that she actually shows Sethe’s life afterwards, and how she had to live with the guilt. The question posed isn’t if Sethe was right to kill Beloved, that decision was left up to her and she made it. The real question is how oppression can force a person to feel that death is better than a life in oppression. Sethe’s time in Sweet Home was cruel, not just physically, but mentally. The degree of dehumanization was shown after her marriage wasn’t taken seriously, and that it was regarded as an opportunity to make more slaves. So although it was gruesome- the act of killing beloved- she felt it was an ultimate act of love; to not allow her to grow up the same way she did. Readers know that she does carry guilt about killing Beloved, and we see Beloved haunt her and even drain her once she returns. I think that since Denver and Beloved did not have to grow up enslaved like Sethe, they couldn’t understand her fully as a mother, and that’s part of the reason that Beloved was draining Sethe, because she believed she had to be punished for killing her. Sethe’s guilt over the matter clouded her judgement, and Denver had to watch Sethe succumb to her guilt after beginning to talk about her times at Sweet Home to Beloved. The point to take home- Sethe killing Beloved was a complicated, ultimate act of love but because Beloved never had to face the dangers of slavery like Sethe did, Beloved deemed the act to be heinous and punished Sethe for it. The dangers of slavery were ever so prominent and urgent to Sethe, while Beloved, having dealt with it during her time in the “dark place”, wasn’t in the same situation. I think Morrison has portrayed this complexity very well and Beloved’s return serves as a reoccurring consequence of the original act.

In Beloved, by Toni Morrison, Beloved, the deceased daughter of Sethe comes back from the grave and re-enters Sethe’s life as a ghost, Sethe welcomes her back into 124 but the way Beloved acts is totally different than the way someone would normally act if they were welcomed back into something.

Beloved begins by learning more about Sethe, letting her tell her stories about the life she didn’t get to grow up in, in which Sethe found extremely pleasant yet very painful at the same time, feeling regret for her actions. Beloved then goes on to torment Paul D, who is living with them at the same time, which eventually drives him out of 124 entirely after not being able to put up with Beloved anymore.

Later on in the story, Sethe goes out towards the clearing and Beloved chokes her out in the middle of the clearing, and when Denver confronts her about it she just denies it but Sethe at this point, is already attached to Beloved, having let her go beforehand, she can’t feel the same pain again, and Beloved knows that.

I think that the motive behind Beloved’s actions were something along the lines of making Sethe feel shame for what she’s done to a point where she’s blind to herself and everything around her until it’s just mother and daughter left without Sethe even knowing.