Beloved | Beloved

At a glance:

Author: Toni Morrison
First Published: 1987
Type of Work: Novel
Type of Plot: Historical realism
Time of Work: 1850–1874
Setting: Kentucky and Ohio
Principal Characters: Beloved, Sethe, Denver
Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Ghost story
Subjects: African Americans, Family or family life, North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Memory, Mothers, Parents and children, Racism, Blacks, Murder or homicide, South or Southerners, Gender roles, Supernatural, Escapes, Nineteenth century, Slavery or slaves, Abandoned children, Exorcism, Ghosts or apparitions, Guilt, Middle Passage, Midwest, Ohio, Underground railroad, Yards or backyards
Locales: Kentucky, Ohio

Beloved moves back and forth through time, telling in flashbacks the story of the characters’ slave pasts. Throughout the narrative, the reader learns the background of the characters and the pertinent incidents of their slavery. Beloved is killed by her mother, who will not allow her daughter to be returned to slavery. As the ghost of a woman of twenty, the age the baby would have been if it had survived, Beloved haunts the Ohio house where Sethe and her youngest daughter, Denver, live; Beloved is the past brought to life in the present. Before the spirit of...

Beloved | Beloved

At a glance:

The Novel

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