Research Paper on:
Beloved by Toni Morrison, Psyche of American Slaves, Ghosts, and Myths

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
African heritage and had a great effect on the psyche of the slaves. Africans and the American slaves believed that the ghosts of the dead continued to exist within the  household in order to aid the families when needed and to punish them when they misbehaved; were reminders of the past; and, when the ghosts or the past were forgotten  or repressed, people would suffer. The ghost Beloved in Toni Morrisons "Beloved" is representative of many different things depending upon the perception of each character and their interpretation of what  the past meant to them. The ghost is described as evil, beautiful, sad, lonely or mad depending on which characters perceive as the ghosts representation of the past. In keeping  with the African myth, the characters in the novel, Sethe in particular, must remember and account for their past in order to survive in the future. Morrison makes several comparisons  of the African American psyche and the African psyche as well as the colonial effect on this psyche. In addition, "Beloved" also includes references to the classic mythical creature of  the snake as a symbol of rebirth as Beloved can be perceived as Sethes rebirth. The mythical experiences related in Toni Morrisons "Beloved"  are somewhat consistent with superstitions followed by the slave culture of the time and a segment of the African heritage of the slaves themselves. In describing the "ghost" of Beloved,  the characters in the novel believe that Beloved is the ghost of the "crawling already? baby" but Morrison makes the concept of Beloved questionable and ambiguous. Critics of the novel  have often assumed that Beloved is who Morrison and Sethe claims she is, a spirit of a dead baby. Morrison adds that Beloved" is a spirit on one hand, literally