Characters
Sethe
● Haunted by the ghost of her dead daughter and the memories of her life as a
slave. Scarred by the brutality of the schoolteacher's nephews and the discovery
that white people consider her of no more importance than an animal.
● She searches for her humanity through a determination to reach freedom for her
children. Conclusion. Her escape from Sweet Home shows the force of her will
to overcome impossible circumstances and foreshadows the desperate measures
she undertakes to stop her children from enduring a life of slavery.
● Her own mothers abandonment affects her deeply, and she resolves to not do
the same to her own daughters, as she was left without a living relative but also
to face the horrors of slavery. Motherhood
● In Sethe’s mind, killing her children to save them from slavery is the ultimate
expression of mothers love.
Beloved
● The spirit of Sethe’s murdered daughter or simply a mentally unstable woman?
● A collective spirit of all the unnamed slaves who were torn from their homes in
Africa and brought to America. Chapter 22- Beloved remembers crouching in a
hot place where people are crowded together and dying of thirst.
● Sethe’s own mother came from Africa, so Beloved memory of experience is
the same as Sethe’s mothers, therefore Beloved can represent both Sethe’s
mother and daughter.
● Morrison doesn’t develop her character as an individual because she is
supernatural and represents the spirit of multiple people, therefore she acts as a
force rather than a person. Supernatural
● Beloved defines herself through Sethe’s experiences and actions, asking for
stories of Sethes’ life, but her need becomes overwhelming and her attachment
to Sethe destructive.
Denver
● Represents the African American hope for the future.
● Sethe believes she is a charmed child as she seems to survive impossible
circumstances. Her innocence is lost when she discovers what Sethe did to
Beloved and was planning to do to her.
Schoolteacher
● The only purely evil character, detached and methodical cruelty.
● He is not a fully developed character, but the representation of the evil in
human beings which justifies the degradation of other people, supporting
murder as a solution to social problems.
Sethe
● Haunted by the ghost of her dead daughter and the memories of her life as a
slave. Scarred by the brutality of the schoolteacher's nephews and the discovery
that white people consider her of no more importance than an animal.
● She searches for her humanity through a determination to reach freedom for her
children. Conclusion. Her escape from Sweet Home shows the force of her will
to overcome impossible circumstances and foreshadows the desperate measures
she undertakes to stop her children from enduring a life of slavery.
● Her own mothers abandonment affects her deeply, and she resolves to not do
the same to her own daughters, as she was left without a living relative but also
to face the horrors of slavery. Motherhood
● In Sethe’s mind, killing her children to save them from slavery is the ultimate
expression of mothers love.
Beloved
● The spirit of Sethe’s murdered daughter or simply a mentally unstable woman?
● A collective spirit of all the unnamed slaves who were torn from their homes in
Africa and brought to America. Chapter 22- Beloved remembers crouching in a
hot place where people are crowded together and dying of thirst.
● Sethe’s own mother came from Africa, so Beloved memory of experience is
the same as Sethe’s mothers, therefore Beloved can represent both Sethe’s
mother and daughter.
● Morrison doesn’t develop her character as an individual because she is
supernatural and represents the spirit of multiple people, therefore she acts as a
force rather than a person. Supernatural
● Beloved defines herself through Sethe’s experiences and actions, asking for
stories of Sethes’ life, but her need becomes overwhelming and her attachment
to Sethe destructive.
Denver
● Represents the African American hope for the future.
● Sethe believes she is a charmed child as she seems to survive impossible
circumstances. Her innocence is lost when she discovers what Sethe did to
Beloved and was planning to do to her.
Schoolteacher
● The only purely evil character, detached and methodical cruelty.
● He is not a fully developed character, but the representation of the evil in
human beings which justifies the degradation of other people, supporting
murder as a solution to social problems.
