The Importance Of Community In Toni Morrison's Beloved

In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, one’s community is emphasized as the best thing for people who have went through trauma together as a way to move on. Written in 1987, Beloved is a narrative of a black woman, named Sethe, and her family in the 1800’s in two different times in her life: when she was a slave and after she ran away with her kids, 18 years later. By the end of the novel, Sethe’s past catches up to her and she falls into taking care of the woman she believes is the embodiment of the baby she killed, and she has to be saved by the town that, formerly, rejected her. In fact, the community is the liberator for terrible memories of the past, by giving one to tell stories to, giving a shoulder to cry on, and creating a friend to forget with.

The master, Mr. Garner, is very proud of his slaves ' temperaments, and brags about them. In fact, he says, “my niggers is men, every one of them. Bought em thataway, raised em thataway. Men every one”. (pg. 12) Them being men, compared to all of the other slaves, is only through the six members of the Sweet Home family being a true family, were everyone works as a group. A great example of staying like men is the way they deal with Sethe, the only eligible woman on the farm. Instead of disrespecting her or even raping her, they “were so young and so sick with the absence of women they had taken to calves. Yet they let the iron-eyed girl be, so she could chose”. (pg. 12) Even though being with cows doesn 't seem very human, it is much better than hurting another person, and the boys wouldn 't control themselves without each other 's support. The next part, after they all tried to run away from the evil, new master Schoolteacher, is a caught Paul D being sent to a hell hole of a jail. After 90 days, he is on the verge of being broken when the large

If a community needs to be together to be healthy, then it stands to reason that someone outside of the community, like Sethe or her daughter Denver, would not be in a very good situation that needs to be changed. Baby Suggs was the only reason that the townspeople visited, and she grew really depressed after her grandkid was killed. She wouldn’t let anyone visit anymore and, as Stamp Paid reasoned, “I been tired all my days, bone-tired, but now it’s in the marrow. Must be what Baby Suggs felt when she lay down and thought about color for the rest of her life”. (pg. 208) Because Baby Suggs was too tired and died, Sethe and her children became very lonely indeed. During the main part of the book, Denver goes out of the house to help her mom after many years solo, and, as soon as she tells someone her situation, people start helping her out. Needing the help, “every now and then, all through the spring, names appeared near or in gifts of food.” (pg. 292) With the entire community working together to assist them, Denver makes friends and allies against the evils of the world. The most interesting thing is that it is Lady Jones, the outsider mullatto woman, is the one Denver goes to first. In fact, she helps her out the most, setting it all up by saying, “but if you all need to eat until your mother is well, all you have to do is say so”. (pg. 292) Going well beyond what she has to do, Lady Jones helps Denver make friends by setting up the food donation for her family,