An Analysis of the Multiple Identities of Beloved

科技信息人文社科An Analysis of the Multiple ldentities of Beloved辽宁工程技术大学.王冬梅[Abstract]Since the publication of Toni Mrrison' s Beloved, the identity of the character Beloved confuses a lot of reades and reviewers.This paper focuses on the analysis of the muliple identities of Beloved.[Key words]Bcloved identity slaverySince the publication of Morrison s novel Beloved in 1987, the identityam going to be in peces," she says, "he hurts where I slep he puts his fingerof the character Beloved has confused many readers and critics as well. Mostthere" (Morrison 212).that Beloved is the ghosly reinceamaion of Sethe'smurdered daugher. Deborah Horvitz argues that Beloved "is not only Sethe' s apparently several years later, when she arives at the creek behind Sethe'stwo-year- old daughter, whom she murdered eigheen years ago; she is alsohouse. Morrison does not specify excly how Beloved comes to be there, butSethe’s African mother”(Horvitz 266), Elizabeth B. House contends thatvarious characters in the novel give plausible explanations. The most plausibleBeloved "is not a supematural being of any kind but simply a young wman theory is that ofered by Stamp Paid who says,“was a gird locked up in thewho has herself sffered the hrrors of slavery" (House 284). This paper pointshouse with a whiteman over by Deer Creek. Found him dead last summer andout that Toni Morrison seems to create an ambiguous figure deliberately as athe gid gone. Maybe that s her. Folks say he had her in there since she was away to criticize slavery.pup”(Morrison 235). This possibility would explain Beloved' s skin, her un-First, Beloved is the ghost of Sethe' s dead baby. Most readers and re-lined fee and hands, for if the girl were constantly kept indoors, her skinviewers agree with this interpretation. Sethe escapes with her children from awould not be weathered or worm. Also, the scar under Beloved 's chin could beKentucky plantation called Sweet Home to live with her mother -in-law Babyexplained by such an owner 's il-treatmnent of her. In a slatement that revealsSuges. On the verge of being reaptured by her cruel master Schoolteacher, the sourcee of her name, Beloved saye that men call her "beloved in the darkshe kills her infant daughter in order to save her frorm the misery and indignityand bitch in the light," and in response to another question about her name,of slavery. She then asks an engraver to engrave seven ltes“Beloved" onshe says, "in the dark my name is Beloved" (orison 75).her baby's headstone. After she connes out of prison, she lives with herBeloved, in a way, is also Sethe' s Africah mother. In the present tense ofdaughter Denver in the lonely house alfer Baby Sugp' death and her twothe novel, Sethe' s mother has long been hanged and Sethe barcely remenberssons’running away.“ 124 WAS SPTEFUL Full of a baby' s venom." Fromher mother. Upon Beloved's arival, however, Sethe' s repressed memories ofthe beginning lines of the novel, we know that the house Sethe and her daugh-her mother slowly begin to re- emerge.ter lives is haunted with a baby's ghost. Both the mother and the daugherIn describing her mother' s appearance, Sethe remarks that“she' d hadthink that the ghost is the spirit of the baby Sethe kll Things change whenthe bit so many times she smiled. When she wasn' t smiling she smiled, and Ithe last of the Sweet Home men Paul D comes to the house. With his strong never saw her own smile" (Morrison 203). People had informed Sethe that "itwill, Paul D drives the baby ghost out of the house.was the bit that made. her [mother] smile when she didn't want to" (MorrisonShorly afer that, a mysterious young woman appears near Sethe' s house.203). While Beloved shows no physical indications of ever having worm a bit,She calls herself Beloved. Evidence shows this younwoman is thetrue to-life- presence of the baby that Paul D drives out. She returms in theThe strongest piece of evidence identifing Beloved as Sethe' s motherflesh to reclaim her place in the family and pssibly to mete out punishmentcan be observed in the final chapter of the novel.“When once or twice Sethefor the death. Beloved is nineten years old, the age she would have been iftried to assert herself- -be the unquestioned mother whose word was law andshe had lived. She acts like a baby: she has seepy eyes, her hands and fee are who knew what was best - Beloved slammed thing,"rejecting Sethe' 8 role assoft, her skin is fawless, she cannot hold her head u, she is incontinent. motherorison 242). Evntull, Sethe elinquiseis her position as Beloved'Beloved alway askes Sethe where her earings are. Before her death, Sethe's$ mother altogether and flls into the positin of Beloved' s daughter.“"Belovedbaby gid had loved to play with her mother' s crystal errings. She also has bending over Sethe looked the mother, Sethe the tething child, for other thanscar around her neck and three finger-nail marks on her head, which maythose times when Beloved needed her, Sethe confined herself to a comer chair.have been left when her mother kills her.The bigger Beloved got, the smallr Sethe became .. She [Sethe] sat in theBeloved's memories of her past, however, sgget that she may also be anchair licking her lips like a chastised cil-Morrison 250)."African gird who survived the Middle Passage. From Beloved's digjointedAll in all, Morrison intends to ask Beloved to represent every Africanthoughts and her stream- of- conscious remembering, Morrison takes thewoman or the sixty Million and more to whom the book is dedicated. Six mil-chance to describe the inhuman treatment and condition of Africans during thelion is the number of Africans who died on the way to slavery. It carries Mori-Middle Passage. The captured Africans have been crouching, crammed in the son's clear intention to expand our understanding of the experience of slavery.overcrowded space for s0 long that the girl thinks‘there will never be a timewhen I am not crouching and watching others who are crouching" (MorrisonReferences210) and then she continues to say that *the men without skin bring us their[1]Horvitz, Deborab.‘"Namneless Ghosts: Posession and Disposessionmoming water to drink.if we had more to drink we could make tears we in Beloved." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jean C. Stine. Vol. 87.cannot make sweat or morming water s0 the men without skin bring us theirs"Detroit: Galc. 1983. 266- :270(Morrison 210). Here, we know that the“morning water" must refer to white中国煤化工CGhost: The Beloved Who Issailors' urine. She continues to explain that in the inhuman conditions of the Not BelMHCNMHG。 Ed. Jean C. Stine. Vol. 87.ship, many blacks die. The "ite hll," a pile of dead bodies, is pushed from Detroit:the bridge of the ship into the ocean. Time passcs and Beloved notes that "the[3 ]Morrison, Toni. Beloved [z ].New York: New American Library,others are taken 1 am not laken”(Morrison 212). It appears as if one of the 1988.white sailrs or oficerse is atracted by the girl's beauty and keeps the girl.“I- 137-