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Beloved: The Human Condition - College Essays

Beloved: The Human Condition

Toni Morrison's novel, Beloved, reveals the effects of human emotion and its power to cast an individual into a struggle against him or herself. In the beginning of the novel, the reader sees the main character, Sethe, as a woman who is resigned to her desolate life and isolates herself from all those around her. Yet, she was once a woman full of feeling: she had loved her husband Halle, loved her four young children, and loved the days of the Clearing. And thus, Sethe was jaded when she began her life at 124 Bluestone Road-- she had loved too much. After failing to 'save' her children from the schoolteacher, Sethe suffered forever with guilt and regret. Guilt for having killed her ...

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exposes the internal conflicts that encumber her characters. By contrasting those individuals, she shows tragedy in the human condition. Both Sethe and Beloved suffer the devastating emotional effects of that one fateful event: while the guilty mother who lived refuses to passionately love again, the daughter who was betrayed fights heaven and hell- in the name of love- just to live again. Sethe was a woman who knew how to love, and ultimately fell to ruin because of her "too-thick love" (164). Within Sethe was the power of unconditional love for her children-- she had "milk enough for all" (201). Morrison uses breast milk to symbolize how strong Sethe's maternal desires were. She could never forget the terror of the schoolteacher robbing her of her nurturing juices, she crawled on bleeding limbs to fill her baby's mouth with her milk, and finally, she immortalized that grim summer day when she fed Denver her breast milk-- mingled with blood. The bestial image of milk and blood ...

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Beloved: The Human Condition. (2004, August 6). Retrieved February 9, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Beloved-The-Human-Condition/12240

"Beloved: The Human Condition." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 6 Aug. 2004. Web. 9 Feb. 2026. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Beloved-The-Human-Condition/12240>

"Beloved: The Human Condition." Essayworld.com. August 6, 2004. Accessed February 9, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Beloved-The-Human-Condition/12240.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 8/6/2004 07:49:53 PM
Category: English
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 986
Pages: 4

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