Depths of Love in Beloved

The main characters in Beloved have all experienced painful losses of people they love and each one must decide how and when they will love again.  The title “Beloved” is fitting for the story because it makes reference to the many beloved people that have been lost or stolen by the institution of slavery.  As a result, the title also indirectly reminds readers of the courage it takes to keep loving people despite the danger of losing them. 

The society in which Sethe lives cautions her against loving anything too much, in order to avoid the inevitable heartbreak when the thing she loves is taken from her.  Ella tells Sethe that she should “love nothing” (Morrison 109), and Paul D advises her to “love just a little bit” (Morrison 57) because loving too much is “risky” (Morrison 57).  Paul D follows his own advice, keeping his emotions locked tight in a figurative “tobacco tin buried in his chest” (Morrison 88) and only allowing himself to love “small and in secret” (Morrison 255).  Sethe, however, loves her children fiercely and thickly because, as she tells Paul D, she believes that “thin love ain’t love at all” (Morrison 191). 

Sethe eventually loses everyone in her family except Denver, yet she refuses to let the threat of loss taint her love for Denver.  For example, when Paul D becomes angry at Denver for asking how long he’s planning to stay, Sethe demonstrates her unconditional love for her daughter by telling him she “can’t hear a word against [Denver]” (Morrison 57).  Denver inherits Sethe’s habit of loving deeply, but instead of loving a daughter, Denver loves Beloved.  When Beloved is sick, Denver feels such “love and…breakneck possessiveness” (Morrison 66) for Beloved that she  “watche[s] her sound sleep, listen[s] to her labored breathing, and…hid[es]…Beloved’s incontinence” (Morrison 66).  Like Sethe, Denver feels “helpless” to acknowledge Beloved’s faults (Morrison 123) because she so strongly loves Beloved.   Although Sethe and Denver are ostracized by the community for Sethe’s infamous act of “too-thick love” (Morrison 192), the fact that the women continue to love the people close to them proudly and freely demonstrates a kind of emotional courage that most of the other characters lack.