The Reclamation of Body in Beloved

This paper explores the ways in which reclaiming body is central for former African American slaves to achieve their freedom from the haunting past of slavery in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The subject of motherhood under slavery Morrison chose, in which mother-child relationship deteriorates into the possessive one of slavery, helps us see how serious and ongoing the problem of slavery is. When slave catchers find Sethe and her children, she attempts to kill all of them as if their bodies were owned by her, a consequence of her unconscious internalization of the slave owner’s logic. Morrison reveals the problem of such internalization through Beloved’s claim of her mother’s body. When she returns in the form of a young woman, Sethe becomes almost enslaved by Beloved and her insatiable demands. Their relationship soon degenerates into violence, testifying that they have not yet escaped out of their slaved past, a past thriving and waiting to overwhelm African American lives like “jungle” at any time. The real escape from the past comes when they acknowledge the necessary separation of their bodies. Only with such acknowledgement, Sethe is able to overcome the trauma of the past experiences and to recover from the fragmented body parts to the whole self.