¶ … mythical analysis of the book, including whether the mythical content of the book is a "good myth" that prepares the reader to deal with real world problems and issues. "Beloved" is a magical, disturbing, and classic work that won a Pulitzer Prize for literature. Reading the book is like reading an old myth, because the story itself is larger than life, and the lessons are larger than life, too. The book teaches the reader about slavery, even if they think they know about it already. It shows the lasting affects slavery had on those who served as slaves, and how it changed people's lives, their outlook, and their very souls. It is a haunting book because it stays in the mind long after the reader has finished turning the pages. Thus, the book helps teach something incredibly important to readers by the use of myth and mythical situations.
What is myth? Author David Adams Leeming writes, "The English word 'myth' is derived from the Greek mythos, meaning word or story. Human beings have traditionally used stories to describe or explain things they could not explain otherwise" (Leeming 3). This definition helps explain the mythical elements of the novel "Beloved." The book describes events and lives that simply could not have been explained any other way for the reader and the characters to understand, and that is why this book portrays a "good myth." It teaches the reader more about black history, slavery, and the desperation slaves felt as they served unrelenting masters in the South.
The character "Beloved" helps continue the mythical theme in this book. She is real; but the family believes she is the reincarnated ghost of the baby her mother Sethe...
Sethe tried to kill her children rather than see them returned to slavery after their discovery in the North. This is the central theme the book revolves around, and the core of the myth that surrounds the book. Beloved is a myth, a "woman-child" who is the same age the baby would have been had she lived, but she is still a "baby" until Sethe teaches her how to be an adult. The entire idea of the book seems mythical and magical somehow, like something that could have happened, but did not. It is larger than life and tells a larger than life story, and that is another commonality with the definition of myth.
The book shows how slavery affected Sethe and her family. She was so incredibly desperate for her children not to know a life of slavery that she would rather kill them than have them return to the South and slavery. This is a powerful lesson and a powerful statement. The entire situation is presented as a myth, but it certainly must have happened in free slave families facing returning to a life of slavery. Anything seemed better than that way of life, even death. In this way, the myth of the story holds true to the definition. The pain of slavery is presented as a myth because it is otherwise inexplicable.
Myths also usually contain heroic figures, and Sethe is certainly a heroic figure, even if she did murder her child. Joseph Campbell eloquently believed in the importance of the hero in myth. Leeming continues, "Whether the hero of a myth is Indian, Norse, African, or Polynesian, whether he or she is on a quest for nirvana, self, the Kingdom of God, or the Golden Fleece, this figure is on a universal human quest for identity…
