From the very beginning, Beloved is an ambiguous character. We know of her headstone and the word being engraved onto it. We know she died a tragic death as a baby, and we know that she is mourned and loved. Yet, we don’t know her real name, we don’t know how she died, and ultimately we really know nothing about her. Then, when she shows up after emerging from a body of water, grown yet unwise, frail yet unnaturally strong, more questions arrive. At the close of the novel, we have spent a lot more time with her character and there is a lot to unpack about Beloved– possibly one of the most interesting characters I have ever read about.
For me, it was immediately apparent who the woman was (her name was quite literally Beloved). However, this is not the case for Sethe and she spends a while perplexed by her identity. Tensions rise, and everyone seems to have a different relationship with this woman– Denver is jealous yet protective, Paul D. is weirded out. Once she figures out that Beloved is her long-lost daughter, everything changes. She is happy to be reunited and feels as though she has been given a second chance with her child. She begs for forgiveness and continuously devotes herself more and more to Beloved.
By the end of the novel, Sethe has all but withered away, giving herself completely to Beloved, feeding her all her food, and Beloved is practically feeding off of Sethe at this point. The relationship is very unique, and everything about Beloved is supernatural. Although there are infinite interpretations, personally I find Beloved to be a representation of Sethe’s guilt. She arrives shortly after Paul D. comes to stir up some of Sethe’s old memories, and she stays while Sethe shares her story about Beloved’s original death. The timeline of Beloved’s stay matches with Sethe’s mental state, and it also affects it, creating a cycle.
I see Beloved rising from the water as a rebirth, not only for her but for Sethe as well. Sethe’s second chance is not her interaction with this new Beloved, but her chance at acknowledging her feelings and trying to work through them. Beloved’s entrance into her life brings out the deep guilt in her and Sethe gets the chance to tell Beloved what she never got to say. She gets to verbalize her suppressed feelings, and in an unorthodox way, Beloved helps Sethe move forward. At the end of the novel, everything has changed, and Sethe is no longer living her depressing, monotonous life: haunted by Beloved’s ghost and caving inwards. Although Beloved is difficult to process, and I am still very unsure about my interpretations, I think analyzing her character is essential when thinking about this truly amazing novel.
