Beloved

Memory, as defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms”. Memories provide a source of defining an individual’s life and well as the life of other individuals. In the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison, memory may as well be a fearful part of the character’s consciousness. The main character Sethe suffers under the hand of her own mental prison that is her memory. She becomes obsessed with her past memories. These memories cause Sethe to dive into a sense of longing for something better for not herself, but for her daughter Beloved. Although Beloved is merely a physical manifestation of her memories, Beloved’s desires
Very rarely are such moments mentioned, although when Sethe and Paul D try to partake in sexual relations the evil spirit of the dead child tries to stop such acts from happening, bringing about rough memories. But, later Sethe and Paul do partake in an act of fornication. Although the sex brought them closer together, there is still a considerable measure of past endeavors they do know and things they do not that remain in between the both of them causing them to shy away from interaction with one another. Sex is the simple piece of the puzzle. Sethe's scar, is a physical token of the difficult past, which causes Paul D to think about his own past. “How fine and loose and free” (Chapter 2). This quote comes from a memory from the past in which Sethe and Paul D recall the moment that Sethe and her husband at the time Halle had sexual relations in the cornfield because there was no place in the house for them to partake in such activities. Although during that time Sethe was not granted an actual marriage to Halle the memory of the consummation of her “marriage” was a wonderful moment in which she had no care in the world for a brief