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Beloved (the girl)

When I first started writing this post I wanted to write about how confusing Beloved is as a character for the other characters in the book but also the readers. (As she just randomly appears and just assimilated with the family.) However, after today's reading, I'm even more confused than ever. I thought she was just going to be a kind of weird person in the family but she not only has a weird obsession with Sethe, but she also has some habits that I just don't know how to react to. First of all, just as a person, she just (to me at least) seems really manipulative. She has Denver completely under her thumb and it seems like Sethe listens to her pretty much all the time no matter what she says or does. But also she just seems to use people without thinking about them at all. She uses Denver to learn about Sethe even though it hurts Denver and she uses her as a kind of substitute when Sethe isn't around. She also uses Paul D for her affair thing (which also seems to really hurt Paul D emotionally). While it's definitely still partially his fault for giving in at the end, she undoubtedly had a very large part to play in how the affair started. She almost forced him to have sex with her the first time even though "he was convinced he didn't want to." Not only this but she seems to have some kind of mind control over him (in any other book I don' think I would believe this) and keeps him sleeping in a place where they can continue their affair. This makes it feel like she is using Paul D. (This is obviously not the only problematic part of the relationship between Paul D and Beloved, it's just what fit with my post.)
I want to excuse the behavior of Beloved because of the life she has had. She's already died at least once and she spent her 'life' as a ghost in a really horrible sounding place. I'm not sure if that makes it ok for her to act in the way that she does though. I feel like she should still be able to recognize (or at least learn) that some of the things that she does are wrong, but she doesn't seem to at all. And I think that is a big factor working against her. Even if we excuse her initial behaviors as because of her background, she should still be able to change and (as of right now) she is not showing any evidence of being able to. She also seemed to (at least initially) bring a lot of happiness to the family, but right now all I can think of is all the problems that she seems to be causing now. Maybe I'm wrong about this but I feel like Beloved is a pretty problematic character. What do you guys think?

Comments

  1. Emma13 November 2018 at 11:51

    No I agree. Her demands are hauntingly creepy and hard to reconcile. The mere idea of her trying to sleep with Paul D, considering the fact that she's Sethe's daughter...yeesh. It is hard to judge her though, considering her existence (or lack thereof). This whole situation is less black and white than the reader wants it to be.

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  2. Zona13 November 2018 at 20:31

    Yeah this is really interesting, I have no idea how "real" Beloved even is, and I don't know how deep I want to dive into that. But is she a ghost? Like, we're reading her has a a ghost, while the characters are experiencing her in a very real way, maybe maybe that's exactly the point. But I have no idea, what is the morality of a ghost? Interesting post, left me with a lot to think about.

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  3. Olivia15 November 2018 at 18:33

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  4. Olivia15 November 2018 at 18:35

    One moment we recently got to that really stuck out to me in a confusing and disturbing way was when Beloved's tooth fell out and Denver asked her why she wasn't crying because of the pain if her tooth just fell out, and Beloved just decided to start crying. This definitely seemed like manipulation. Also, yeah, to me she was definitely plotting to separate Sethe and Paul D by, like you said, kind of forcing him to sleep with her, and I guess she succeeded in driving him away. She freaks me out.

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  5. Solomia15 November 2018 at 19:09

    I’ve been grappling with confusion about her too. Despite how much Sethe and Denver seem to adore Beloved, she just gives me exclusively creepy vibes. There is something supernatural about how easily she integrates into the family. Nobody stops to think too hard about where she came from or what her agenda is (except Paul D, who she somehow drives out (?) of the house to sleep in the shed). Also, I constantly forget that she’s in her early 20s, not in her early teens, simply based off of how Sethe and Denver both treat her, which is also kinda creepy.

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  6. Xanthe Brown17 November 2018 at 11:40

    Yeah I'm struggling with Beloved as a character too. I never thought about the way she really does have Denver under her thumb, since most of our conversations in class have been about Denver and Beloved's connection with each other. Perhaps it is more sinister than that. That said, I don't think Beloved is evil; like Sethe said, the ghost wasn't anything evil, just sad. If Beloved is indeed the same ghost, then she's not evil, and perhaps is being manipulative as a child would. Except now that she's living in an adult body, it's a little more insidious that she gets away with the manipulation. I'm curious to see where all these themes will go. Nice post!

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