Representations of the Civil War in Beloved

Toni Morrison makes scant few references to the Civil War throughout the entirety of Beloved.  Until one of the final chapters when she reveals Paul D’s experiences as a soldier and newly free man during and after the war, Morrison only mentions the war in passing, such as when she notes that Sethe’s sons went to fight.  I found this absence intriguing and telling, because the storyline of the book places the Civil War almost directly in the center of the action, as it depicts slave-life before the War and after.  In part, this deliberate evasion fits very much into the form of the novel; Morrison’s plot frequently jumps around in time while eventually honing in on some revelatory truth.  For instance, when Sethe tells the story of her infanticide to Paul D, Morrison writes that “Sethe knew that the circle she was making around the room, him, the subject, would remain one.  That she could never close in, pin it down for anybody who had to ask (192).”  But with this perspective and plot device in mind, the reader sees that her occasional flirtation with the Civil War eventually narrows in on the actual experience of it (from Paul D’s view), and this makes it a much more crucial event than it first appears.  Much of the book deals with the issues of memory and how African Americans can simply continue their daily lives after their horrific experience, and Paul D’s account displays the exact instant where this occurred, though it had been hitherto ignored.  Though she finally describes the fine details of the Civil War’s instant of freedom in a manner continuous with the entire plot structure, I think Morrison uses this to challenge the master narrative that after the Civil War blacks were suddenly free and all was well.  The brunt of the text focuses on how life remained challenging even after former slaves had been freed, and they all had to come to terms with a past too unspeakable to confront.  Being bestowed with legal freedom did not erase their haunting memories, and this is most vividly embodied in Sethe’s attack on Mr. Bodwin, whose arrival was an echo of former fears.