Exorcising Beloved //Anjelo Reyes

 Exorcising Beloved //Anjelo Reyes

In a few of our classes, we’ve discussed the particularly possessive quality about Sethe’s love. It is a kind of love that is so strong that it lacks any sense of boundary--lacks all conventional sense of ethics. However, it seems that this possessiveness does not solely apply to Sethe, but to Denver as well. As we see, Denver was the first show a deep obsession with Beloved. In a dog-like manner, Denver would follow Beloved everywhere, always careful to keep an eye on her lest she disappears. Sethe was the same when she knew Beloved was her daughter. Both, therefore, sought so strongly to keep Beloved in their lives—to hold her, and to confine her to the point of literal possession. 

In this way, Sethe and Denver are the possessors, and Beloved is the possessed. She is possessed by the spirit of the dead baby—by Sethe’s and Denver’s pasts. 

There are a different number of ways to support this. To begin with, we previously discussed Beloved’s omnisexuality—a kind sexuality that craved intimacy, and that was intimate with those in contact. In the particular scene with Paul D, she tells Paul to feel her insides, to call her by her name. Beloved’s hyper-sexuality seemed to characterize a kind of emptiness in her, and for her to tell Paul D to feel her insides seemed like a call to fill that emptiness—that void. It seemed like a call to substantiate her somehow and to give her identity by calling her by her name and by affirming that she is beloved. She sought possession by Paul D when Sethe would not possess her. 

Not only is Beloved full of sexual craving, but of literal craving in general. By the latter end of the story, all she does is eat. She gets fat from all the sweets she is fed but is nevertheless always hungry, always craving. She is gluttonous and needs constant filling, like blackhole that can’t be satisfied. 

In this way, Beloved seeks to be filled and instantiated. She seeks possession. In this way, she becomes a perfect vessel for Sethe and Denver to possess. They possess her with the traumas and misery and sadness and loneliness and guilt and abandonment and rage entailed by their past. However, Sethe’s past is more overpowering, more grotesque and terrible than Denver’s. Her past overtakes Denver’s and possesses Beloved completely. 

This is evident as the end of the story plays out, when Denver notices that Beloved becomes the literal embodiment of Sethe. Beloved becomes Sethe, and Sethe becomes beloved, and possession takes its full form. 

This final form of possession takes on a devilish character. It feels evil. Sethe becomes a slave once again—she detoriorates and loses her mind. All of it is reminiscent of exorcism movies: the progression that takes place in demon possession. There are constant allusions to the devil, and earlier, when the three are ice skating, Morrison says that they were “falling.” Why falling? Why does she use a word commonly associated with the devil? A fall from grace. 

Later on, in the three chapter that each call Beloved “mine,” the three characters assume a kind of trinitanical character: Father, son, and Holy Spirit. But with them there is an inversion. It is Mother, Daughter, and Spirit of a dead daughter incarnated: a mockery of the trinity and demonic in character. 

Amid this demonic possession and oppression, we see that there is no more room for Denver’s past to fill Beloved, and she somehow escapes that possessive bond. She calls for help in her community and a group of woman come to 124 singing, praying--some holding crosses. This is the exorcism that takes place, and it is ambiguous whether it is Sethe or Beloved they are exorcising. 

In any case, the demon fights back: Sethe tries to stab Elle with the ice-pick. Beloved disappears. From this scene one might interpret that Beloved was the one that actually possessed Sethe, but I think Morrison tries to keep that ambiguous. Sethe was Beloved and Beloved was Sethe.