The meaning of the character of Beloved in Toni Morrison's Beloved
             The character of Beloved in the novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison, is symbolic of several important ideas that are essential to a complete understanding of the novel. In the context of the story itself, Beloved is a specter that has returned to haunt the woman that killed her when she was child. On a deeper, subconscious level to the characters within the story, the character of Beloved can be considered to be reminder of the past. Specifically, the character of Beloved helps two characters, Sethe and Paul D., to deal with their pasts. Finally, in a historical context, Beloved can be interpreted to be a symbol of the problems that developed between mothers and their daughters as a result of the atrocities experienced through slavery. This paper will examine all of these aspects in detail and also demonstrate how they are necessary for a greater understanding of the story contained within the novel and how they complement the historical context of the story.
             In the storyline of Beloved, the character of Beloved is a ghost that has returned to haunt the woman that killed her. It is important to understand the circumstances around her death in order to understand why the character of Beloved must return to her mother. The character of Beloved is the daughter of Sethe. Sethe is a black woman who has escaped a slave farm in the South with her children to the house of her mother-in-law, who is named Baby Suggs. The house is referred to as "124" in the story. Sethe fled a slave owner called "Teacher," who is very sadistic man that had submitted her to many kinds of mental and physical torture. One of the particularly diabolical things about Teacher was that he had attempted to study, in a scientific manner, the slaves he kept as if they were animals, treating them as if they were less than human. Sethe's three children flee to the house ahead...