Sethe , a Slave to Her PastBeloved by Toni Morrison is a vivid picture of the crueltiy of slavery. It is a novel that depicts the horrifying practicies of enslavement in the early Nineteenth Century in the United States of America. It is a depiction of the horrible conditions under slavery and the dehumanization suffered by human beings when they are owned by other human beings. Beloved is a story of a black woman's struggle to overcome her past memories whish are bounded with torture, such memories didn't only runi ...view middle of the document...
In 1873 slavery was abolished in Cincinnati, Ohio for ten years. This is the setting where Morrison places the characters for her powerfully moving novel, Beloved. After the Emancipation Proclamation and after the civil war , Sethe , the mother who murdered her child in order to protect her from a lifetime of humiliation has yet to know the real meaning of freedom.The novel startts with Sethe's life at 124, the house which is haunted by her murdered daughter's ghost. Although noticing this fact might shrills the reader, nevertheless you find out that the characters of the novel are coping with this ghost .So that you can see Sethe and her daughter Denver are leading theor lives normally , moreover they enjoy having this spritual guest with them. This incident is justified through Denver's words:" She is the only othe rcompanion I have".This explains why both Sethe and Denver wanted Paul D. out of their lives because his presence discomfort the ghost although he is the only acquaintenance they know in this area , and the only person who remained from Sweet home who shared with Sethe the cruelity of slavery .
