Analysis Of Beloved Essay Research Paper The

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Analysis Of Beloved Essay, Research Paper The film Beloved, an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Toni Morrison of the same title, portrays the life of a slave and provides a realistic look at the horrors of slavery and the effect that it has on an African American that has lived through such an experience. Sethe, a former slave (played by Oprah Winfrey), lives in a house with, what remains of her four children, Denver (Kimberly Elise), her daughter. They are ostracized by their community for what at first seems to be because they have a rather violent apparition inhabiting their house. This spirit has brutally harmed their dog and driven Sethe s two sons from her home. The activities of the spirit calm after the arrival of Paul D (Danny Glover), an old friend

of Sethe. He, also a former slave, is from the same plantation as Sethe. Sweet Home they call it. Even though Paul D was just passing by, his visit turns into an extended stay as he provides comforting, company, companionship and sexual fulfillment for Sethe at this time. They begin to have the shaky makings of a something that resembles a family until the arrival of Beloved (Thandie Newton). One day on their way back from a carnival they encounter a stranger propped up rather awkwardly against a tree stump outside the front porch of the house. It is a young woman dressed in Victorian black that at first glance seems to be lifeless. Denver takes her in and she and Sethe are immediately accepting of her. Paul D on the other hand has his reservations. She speaks in broken

sentences, as would a toddler and her movements are much the same, like she has not developed any motor skills. The film takes place in 1873 but it is frequently noted and criticized for its non-linear time line. Called a purposefully confusing and unnecessary device, (Movie Guide) it alternates between the present and flashbacks from Sethe s memory of 1855 and the time when she was escaping from bondage. The flashbacks are fragmented and scattered throughout the movie but they tell the story of Sethe s experience and help unravel the underlying mystery of who Beloved is and where she came from. The complexity is not simply a stylistic device; it is built out of Sethe s memories, and the ones at the core are so painful that her mind circles them warily, afraid to touch. Sethe s

life has not been a linear story, but a buildup to an event of unimaginable horror, and a long, sad unwinding afterward, (Ebert). In the beginning of the movie we see a gruesome scene that takes place in Sethe s house where a dog is being thrown around the room and against the wall causing it s eyeballs to come out of its head. I feel that this scene is misleading with respect to what the movie is really about. It is not a genre ghost story but a work that uses the supernatural to touch on deep feelings, (Ebert). Sethe s deep dark past has haunted her, her home, and her family for the past 18 years and has now manifested itself in the form of Beloved. When Sethe had escaped from Sweet Home and the wrath of School Teacher her owner, she walked miles barefoot and pregnant with her

fourth child until she reached Ohio. She then tasted twenty-eight sweet days of freedom. However on the twenty-ninth day she saw that freedom about to be snatched away from her by the same people that had oppressed her before. It was her hatred and fear of slavery and her deep love for her family that caused her to attempt to free her children, determined to protect them from having to suffer the pain and torments of slavery. She only successfully kills one of them, her second youngest, by cutting her neck with a hacksaw. The whole graphic bloody scene was very powerful and moving. It showed that the extent that one would go to in order to be free had no limit. In Sethe s mind her actions were justified by love. She did what she had to do to keep her children from the life that