Contemporary Novel – Beloved

09 Aug 2011 1 Comment

by curlygirl117 in Uncategorized

 

The novel, Beloved, is a story set in the 1870s that revolves around a slave woman named Sethe who is living with the horrors of her past. 16 years prior, she had escaped from slavery.When she was found, instead having her family reinstated to slavery, Sethe attempted to kill her children so as to have them “kept safe” from the harm of being slaves.  She only managed to murder one child, her two-year old daughter, called Beloved. Now, all these years later, she and the only child she has left, her youngest daughter Denver, live in their home, 124, which is haunted by the ghost of the baby that was killed over a decade ago. An old friend of Sethe’s from the plantation, Paul D, comes to find her and slowly shows her joy and how to move on with her life. One night, after returning from the carnival, the family walks back to their home and stumbles upon a young woman seated on their front steps, who calls herself Beloved.

There seems to be a stereotype for novels about slavery and in the set in the era of slavery. Beloved certainly blows those stereotypes out of the water and it tells an unseen side of slavery and really gives a new perspective on what those people went through. The hardships and the psychological aspects are told in a whole new manner and I think that it will open the eyes of many people. The novel was rather depressing and it showed in full detail Sethe’s guilt in murdering Beloved and Denver’s jealousy over her mother’s preoccupation with trying to make up for her mistakes all those years ago.

I really didn’t enjoy Beloved. It was a good book at the beginning, because the storyline was so original and new, but then the rest of the book was lost in flashbacks and it focused on the characters spiraling toward depression, namely Sethe. It was a very sad novel and by the middle of the book, I just wanted it to be over. But, that’s not to say that some people would really enjoy it. It is a rather deep book, sifting through emotions such as grief, guilt, jealousy, and sadness. An interesting concept, but a rather boring book.

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