The concept of love is a very complex one in Toni Morrison's Beloved, in that many of the characters in the novel consider it as a burden in their lives, and thus refuse to embrace it to it's full extent. In several instances in the novel, characters like Paul D and Ella speak about forgoing emphatic love entirely, and instead distancing themselves from the rest of the world, in fear that if something were to happen to a loved one, the resulting agony would be too much to bear. For Paul D, this lifestyle of his is apparent in the scene where Denver asks him how long he will "hand around," as Paul is skeptical about Sethe's intense love for her child considering the fact that she is an escaped slave. For Ella, this sentiment regarding love is apparent when she organizes the party of women to rescue Sethe from Beloved's oppression. Both characters believe it is best to love nothing too much, and thus appear fairly stable throughout the novel in terms of character development. What's interesting to note, however, is how the characters who adopt the opposite mindset feel, mainly Sethe and Denver and their respective character developments in light of their strong love for Beloved. Although both characters show an initial intense desire and love for Beloved when she enters the novel, Denver is able to stay relatively unaffected by Beloved's departure, and actually flourish due to her dwindling sense of love for Beloved in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, while Sethe's love persists and proves to hurt her in the end, just what Paul D and Ella have attempted to prevent for their entire lives.
Morrison depicts Paul D's notion of distancing himself from everything and keeping his love spread out early in the novel, when he consider's the logic behind Sethe's unequivocal love for Beloved: "Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit; everything, just a little bit, so when they broke it's back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one" (54). We can see from these lines Paul D's paranoia about love. He makes the point that loving someone too much is more of a detriment than the benefits that one receives from the relationship, in that the despair felt after the loss of a loved one isn't worth it. Paul D highlights the fact that this notion is even more pronounced for Sethe, an escaped slave-woman with children, as he believes that it isn't wise for Sethe to love her children so much when there is always the lingering possibility that a slave catcher could appear and separate her family. At the time, Paul D doesn't know just how accurate his analysis of love is, as it is this exact reasoning that causes Sethe to kill Beloved when schoolteacher shows up at 124. By "loving everything a little bit" Paul D aims to lessen the sorrow when a loved one is lost or taken away, to the point where he can muster up enough strength to continue with his life by focusing on everything else that he has distributed his love to. As a result of this mindset, Paul D appears fairly nomadic throughout the novel, moving around a lot to escape slavery, and living independently for most of his life. Ella shares a similar belief due to her traumatic experiences being trapped by the father and son. She feels no desire to love anyone and is content with the fact that the reverse is true: "Nobody loved her and she wouldn't have liked it if they had, for she considered love a serious disability" (301). Ella describes love as a disability and therefore feels no desire to indulge in it. Feeling a strong sense of love will only end up backfiring in Ella's eyes, and as a result she appears independent throughout the novel.
When considering Paul D and Ella's concept of how to approach love, it seems to hold true for the other main characters in the novel: Sethe and Denver. Both Sethe and Denver show a strong love for Beloved at various point in the novel--Denver immediately after Beloved's arrival, and Sethe after the guilt settles in that she killed her first daughter. However, despite the fact that both character's expressed a strong love for Beloved in the novel, only Sethe is affected in the way that Paul D and Ella would predict. Despite showing intense love for Beloved, just what Paul D and Ella dissuade, Denver is able to move past Beloved's disappearance and actually thrive from it. The difference between Sethe and Denver with respect to their affection for Beloved is mainly in the time period that they express it. Denver's initial infatuation with Beloved disappears after she realizes the ramifications of Beloved's presence on Sethe's mental fortitude. As a result, Denver's love for Beloved starts to falter towards the end of the novel, so when Beloved disappears, Denver doesn't break down, but actually grows as a character due to her ability to transcend the thought of being reunited with her sister. Sethe's love for Beloved, on the other hand, peaks right before Beloved's departure, and as a result she follows the path that Paul D and Ella strive so hard to stay away from. She invested her love so much into Beloved that when she disappears, Sethe is broken and starts to deteriorate as a character. It is interesting to consider where Paul D and Ella's notions regarding love would hold true if Beloved disappeared when Denver had still been expressing an intense love for Beloved. According to Paul D and Ella, Denver would have had a reaction similar to how Sethe feels at the end of the novel, devoid and lacking a purpose in life.
One way of reading the arc of Paul D's character in the novel--and I don't mean this to sound as cheesy as it probably will sound--is that, through his present-tense developing relationship with Sethe, he is learning how to love, to allow that tin heart to beat again, so to speak. He's thinking of settling down with Sethe and "making a life," when her information about what happened that day in the shed stops him in his tracks. He responds with horror and judgment, but as he retreats to (significantly) a church and spends time alone reflecting (and with Stamp Paid), he comes to sympathize with and forgive Sethe. This doesn't mean that he absolutely affirms what she's done, but he becomes uncomfortable judging her for it. Instead of "counting her feet," when he comes back, he's just going to "rub them"--to give compassionate comfort to her, who has suffered so much. For all the talk of love as a dangerous risk in this novel, we do see Paul growing into it by the very end. It's a struggle, and that's very much Morrison's aim, I think.
ReplyDeleteI think that this concept of how much someone should love is crucial to the difference between Paul D and Sethe in the novel. Sethe loves a lot, motherly love even defining her character at important points in the story. Paul D cannot understand how Sethe would think it's okay to kill her daughter because he has not felt that strong love. Sethe, on the other hand, does not understand how Paul D does not understand he, because she has felt the strong love and can't imagine life any other way. This is the main didvide between the two characters in the novel. It hink that Morison leaves it ambiguous as to who we are supposed to think is more correct in their way of thinking. I do think you are correct in the opposition between Denver, who loves her family immensely, and Ella, who does not, both reasonable characters in Part Three. I think that Morrison is intentionally leaving it ambiguous as to what the "correct" approach is.
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