Baby

               Beloved (the character, not the book) is almost a walking contradiction. She has the body of an 18-year-old woman, and with it the impulses and desires that come with the age, but mentally and behaviorally she often acts like an infant. She initiates sexual contact with Paul D, but she has no memories and does not speak much, almost never elucidating her thoughts clearly. This makes her relationship with Sethe quite complicated. She feels love and affection for her, and desires to have her all to herself, but she also might have used some supernatural powers to choke Sethe when they go outside. She despises Paul D as someone who pulls Sethe's attention away from herself, but she tempts him into having sex with her. With the revelation partway through the book that Beloved is Sethe's child that she murdered in an attempt to keep her away from slavery, the relationship takes on a whole new dimension. It becomes increasingly clear that Beloved is functionally incapable of explaining her feelings, but is terrified of the "dark place" she existed in during the interim between her murder and eventual reincarnation. She feels a bond towards her mother, but is emotionally stunted and sometimes lashes out in an attempt to stay close to Sethe.

                From her first appearance, it is clear that Beloved and Sethe share a special bond. Her emergence from the water coincides with Sethe out of the blue having an experience similar to her water breaking. Her behavior for the next few days mirrors that of a newborn almost exactly, and the few things we get from her perspective are a strong connection to Sethe, a sentiment that is captured with words even in thought by Beloved. Despite this connection, however, when Sethe takes Beloved and Denver to the clearing where Baby Suggs used to preach, she feels hands around her throat choking her. Beloved then comes to her rescue, kissing Sethe's neck and rubbing the bruises. Although Sethe is relieved to not be choked, she is also confused by Beloved's actions. Denver then in private accuses Beloved of doing the choking, although Beloved denies it. The whole situation is quite strange: why would Beloved choke her own mother and then come to kiss the bruises? Furthermore, why is Beloved's reaction to the choking so intimate? Even if she cannot explain herself, it is clear that Beloved does not express emotion and connection like anyone else in the novel, as her relationship with each of the other characters is quite strange. Part of it is her implied infancy, and that she has only been alive for roughly two years, but part of it is also what she represents that causes her to act the way she does. Her fate and current state of existence is due to the horror of slavery that Paul D and Sethe had to live through, and despite the love that Sethe and Beloved have for each other, everyone still feels discomfort and confusion dealing with their past demons in such a literal way. I have not read the book up to the end, but I would make a guess that this problem is not simply going to resolve itself, and that most likely more tragedy will occur before Beloved has anything close to a healthy relationship or existence.