On the Inevitability of Sethe's Infanticide:The Interpretation of Beloved from the Perspective of Binary Opposition

The novel Beloved by Toni Morrison is regarded as the milestone of the history of black literature. This paper interprets Beloved from the perspective of binary opposition. By analyzing four pairs of binary oppositions in the novel, that is, human and ghost, rebellion and repression, the black's wedding and the white's wedding and Sethe's lack of motherhood and her love to her children, and it concludes it is slaveholding society and Sethe's pursuit of freedom and equality that result in the certainty of her infanticide.