Can We Truly Forget The Past?
In the last chapter Toni Morrison's novel Beloved insists that “it was not a story to pass on” (Morrison 323). In addition to this repeated phrase the final chapter states, “So they forgot her. Like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep” (Morrison 324). However I find it hard to believe that anyone, especially Sethe, managed to utterly forget Beloved simply because she told herself it was not something that should be passed on. Throughout the book memory and rememory come up as a central theme. At one point Sethe even says, herself, that “nothing ever dies” (Morrison 43). This statement proved true throughout the narrative in that Beloved, a ghost baby, remained forever present in the personality of the 124 house. Her persistence in the life of Sethe and Denver represents the fact that no matter what happens in the future (for example the potential of living a full and happy life in a family with Paul D.) the past still alters the present. This fact not only haunts the psyc...