Beloved

I'm going to be completely honest, I hated reading Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. I know it's a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature, but it was a difficult and graphic read. However, regardless of my feelings towards the novel, my BQ can still be applied to it. In the case of the characters in Beloved, when faced with adversity, their potential-- more specifically their identity-- suffers. While speaking of her book, Morrison is quoted to have said, "This is not a book about slavery," yet the emotional, physical, and mental toll that slavery takes is a common theme throughout.
Though they are not in physical bondage to each other, Sethe, Denver and Beloved are are emotionally-- even spiritually-- bound to each other. The fragmented nature of each of the three monologues in Part II is representative of each character's fragmented, incoherent identity. The voices mingle, making it difficult to attribute each phrase to its speaker.I take that as an way of Morrison showing Sethe, Beloved, and Denver have conflated and confused their identities so far beyond recognition, that it is even hard to distinguish who's memories are whose. Denver, for example, doesn't even own her own identity; even her name is someone else's and though Sethe preserved the freedom/identity of Beloved, she has stifled that of Denver's in doing so. Sethe cannot cut the psychological umbilical cord that attaches her to Beloved, nor can Beloved cut it either.

It is not just Sethe, Denver, and Beloved who suffer, however. Every character's potential/identity is a vicitim of the adversity of the novel.Where slavery exists, everyone suffers a loss of humanity and compassion-- not only the identities of its black victims but also those of the whites who perpetrate it. Paul D has shut off himself off from emotion and buried his feelings into the "rusted tobacco tin" of his heart, Baby Suggs no longer felt freedom was worth anything, Halle went mad, even the Garner's benevolence and condescension illustrates the loss of compassion.

In regards to Beloved the answer to my BQ is when faced with adversity, namely the institution of slavery, an individual's potential/identity is hindered and as a result is left in a cycle of fragmentation, because according to Sethe, "nothing ever dies."