Beloved Close Analysis

Throughout the novel Beloved, there are numerous and many obvious reoccurring themes and symbols. While the story is based off of slavery and the aftermath of the horrible treatment of the slaves, it also breaches the subject of the supernatural. It almost seems like the novel itself is haunted. It is even named after the ghost. To further the notion of hauntings, the characters are not only haunted by Beloved at 124, but they are haunted by their past, and the novel is not only about ridding their home of the ghost, but releasing their hold on what had happened to them in worse times.

Obviously, Sethe is the most dramatically haunted throughout the book, both by her past and by Beloved. As far as her past is concerned, so many things had happened to her and by her, it’d be impossible to not be haunted by something. For starters, she was beaten so badly that her back has a permanent blossoming scar, one that she calls a “chokecherry tree. Trunk, branches, and even leaves. Tiny little chokecherry leaves. But that was