Beloved: A psychoanalytical reflection

The psychoanalytic lens was an interesting and challenging lens choice for the reading of Toni Morrison's Beloved. Although, on the surface, the book seemed to have less to analyze psychoanalytically as it did feminist, or through other lenses, by the end of the novel, with a careful eye, I was able to learn many things about the characters' inner motivations and struggles. In this blog, as a wrap up, I want to note what I learned about the three central characters: Sethe, Denver and Paul D.

Sethe - Sethe is quite possibly the most damaged character of the novel, and because of this, there was much to learn about her psychologically. First I noticed her unwillingness to trust others. She's wary of new people, even of Paul D at first, even though she used to know him. This is because of all of the things that have been done to her in her life. So much has been taken away, so much pain has been dealt, that she cannot manage to trust people in life. Another thing I noticed with Sethe is how she tries to pretend her hardships weren't so bad, by attempting to paint them in a better light (example: the chokecherry tree, which I previously wrote about). This is another byproduct of all the abuse she was subjected to as a slave. Her only coping mechanism is denial.

Denver - The main thing I noticed about Denver is her emotional instability, and like her mother, inability to trust others. She, at first, is very wary of Paul D. Later on, she is also unsure of Beloved, even though Sethe adores her, and this wariness is what eventually leads to the neighbors' exorcism of Beloved. In this way, her inability to trust new people is both a detracting quality and a beneficial one.

Paul D - Paul D has experienced, arguably, just as much pain and suffering as Sethe, yet he copes with the pain differently. Instead of repainting them as less torturous than they truly were, he does his best to forget those times, to pretend as if that part of his life simply never existed. Whether this is a better coping strategy is purely opinion, but I believe it's better than pretending that Sweet Home and slavery wasn't a bad experience. Paul also struggles with his concept of being a man. At Sweet Home, Garner called him a man, but later on the schoolteacher punished him, making him question himself. Not only that, but the things he was forced to do in slave camp, and the things Beloved did to him (moving him around the house against his will) made him question who he really was.

These are just a few of the many psychoanalytic aspects of Beloved, but they, in my opinion, are the most notable.