Destruction of Identity in Tony Morrison’s “Beloved”

Abstract

            Tony Morrisons Beloved explores the physical, emotional and spiritual devastation wrought by slavery, a devastation that continues to haunt the character Seth.  She is an African-American female, who takes her daughters life to save her from shackles of slavery.  It is a novel about slavery and about the history of race based oppression.  The most dangerous of slaverys effect is its impact on the former slaves senses of self.  The novel contains the multiple examples of self-alienation.  Beloved is the story of Seths quest for social freedom and psychological wholeness.  She struggles with the haunting memory for her slavery and the retribution pf Beloved, the ghost of her dead daughter whom she has murdered in order to protect her from the living death of slavery.  The entire novel hinges on the death of Beloved who mysteriously comes back as a sensuous young woman in order to claim her mothers love.