The setting is Beloved

“Beloved” by Toni Morrison is based in the reconstruction era, in Cincinnati, Ohio of 1873. It’s the story of Seethe a former slave who lives with her eighteen year old daughter Denver, in a house that they believe to be haunted with the spirit of her dead sister. The story however flows through two time periods, in two different houses, one in house number 124 where they live in present time and one in a rather benevolent slave farm, Sweet Home in Kentucky approximately twenty years ago. The story unfolds through the recollection of the different character’s times in these two places, their journey between the two houses and how it breaks and builds them up again.

Acclaimed novelist Robert Louis Stevenson hit the nail on the head when he said that, “we are creatures of our environment”. This especially holds true for a novel like "Beloved" where the setting is so powerful that it serves to mold the characters living within it. 124 in Ohio and Sweet Home in Kentucky— that is our setting, and whatever happened, happened in these two places. They were both simultaneously separate and hopelessly entwined with the tragedy that found its host within them.

Separate, in the beauty of these places- “…and suddenly there was Sweet Home rolling, rolling, rolling out before her eyes, and although there was not a leaf on that farm that made her want to scream, it rolled itself out before her in shameless beauty…it made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too” (6) – where things had once been good. 124 where Baby Snuggs had once been a preacher, had a community that loved her and Sweet Home where Seethe met Halle and made a family for herself.

However, they were also hopelessly entwined with the characters because of the strong hold that they had on them. This strong hold was because of the quality in them that kept the characters isolated from the rest of the world. The fact that they were never allowed to leave Sweet Home made it their whole world. Benevolent owners like the Garners showed the Sweet Home Boys and Seethe that they could be more than just slaves. That Halle could buy out his mother, that they could be free, own themselves. This awareness was the cause of Seethe’s outrage at the fact that the School Teacher (the new owner of the farm) was comparing them to animals—it was also what made Seethe love her children in a manner so fierce that she would rather kill them herself than let them become animals on the farm. Shunned by the community, 124 is also isolated. So it too becomes a world of its own, especially for Seethe’s daughter, Denver, who only steps out of her front yard thrice in her eighteen years of life. This isolation produces in her a feeling of loneliness so intense that she becomes dependent on the ghost of her dead sister and develops an obsessive relationship with Beloved.

"Beloved" is a prime example of how the setting of a place can give the writer an opportunity to add depth to their characters. It shows us how the writer can manipulate the setting and use it to make their characters behave in a certain way. And as a writer this is a valuable lesson to learn.  

--Smriti Bansal