Love of the Many Universal

Love

Of the many universal human themes that Toni Morrison explores in her novel Beloved, love -- especially the love of one's children -- is one of the most poignant and the most powerful. Despite the universality and the power of love, however, the realities of love for the characters in Beloved are anything but universal or normal. Both in their lives as slaves and in some of the characters' escaped-to freedom, even the parental love for a child is tainted and twisted by the system of slavery that robs these characters of their very humanity. Morrison also suggests that love can also be a method of ultimately triumphing over the evils of slavery simply by its existence, though leading to an odd juxtaposition of its power. Both of these elements of parental love are visible in the quoted selection, as Sixo's laughter at the knowledge of his offspring's existence extinguishes the flames that have been lit underneath him, while at the same time his paternal affections are tainted by the fact that he has been recaptured and is soon to be killed.

These same twinned elements of the redemption and corruption that are a part of love in the system of slavery are also visible in other portions of the book. Sethe's relationship with Beloved, whether she be a flesh-and-blood impostor or truly some supernatural presence of Sethe's murdered daughter, is the primary way that this theme is developed in the novel. Though the character of Beloved is highly significant for other reasons as well, the thought that she could be Sethe's child develops this bastardization of love early on, when a "shift in the fortunes" of Sethe's family caused the "presence" to be "full of spite" (122). Sixo's love is seen as somewhat more pure, as he dies with the knowledge that his child lives, though it is yet unborn.

This same dual nature of love is also exposed, with some variation, in other works that deal with slavery and with the later segregation and institutional racism that typified much of American culture. In W.E.B. DubBois' The Souls of Black Folks, the author describes the birth and death of his first-born child in incredibly poignant yet controlled terms, and links these events to the system of racism in which he lived, and which was one generation removed from the slavery of the nineteenth century. The bittersweet quality of this section as a whole is added to by the author's observation that his child "knew no color line," and thus was not tainted by racism (Ch. XI, par. 10). Yet the father's own experience taints his love for his son, serving as a point of small joy and comfort in the witness of his son's death as an infant. There is both a great strength in the love that DuBois describes, and a severe impediment.