Georgina Paez
12/01/2020
Psychopathology in Literature, Writing Section

“Beloved” by Toni Morrison, tells the story of a former slave called Seth, who lives in a house called 124 Bluestone Road in Cincinnati, Ohio (1873). She lives with her daughter, Denver, who’s eighteen years old. In the past when Seth escaped her master she feared he would capture her children and force them into slavery, so she attempted to kill all of her kids. She was unsuccessful at killing her two sons, but was able to kill her third child: her daughter, Beloved. Now in the present time, a ghost haunts Seth’s home, which the family believes it to be Beloved. Beloved’s spirit causes Seth to heavily remember the past and stay stuck in those events. Seth goes as far as providing for the spirit she believes to be her deceased daughter in hopes of making up for the past. Throughout the story, the spirit becomes aggressive and possessive, which puts Seth in harm’s way. This forces Denver, who was pretty close to the ghost at first, to get help from the community in hopes of protecting her mother. The community is able to perform an exorcism and get rid of the ghost, leaving Seth feeling alone, miserable and heartbroken. Throughout the story, we see Seth experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), due to the traumatic life experiences she has been put through in her life. In order to portray Seth’s PTSD, I chose to do two genres: a poem and a painting, that I feel perfectly captures her experiences. I titled both the poem and the painting “The Slave” as they both represent Seth’s struggle with PTSD, which is like she’s a slave to her own mind. I chose this title based off of major details in both genres, for example a line in my poem states, “A slave I was, and a slave I still am to the trauma that roams free inside my head.” In my painting I painted chains which symbolize slavery. However both of these genres highlight slavery of one’s mind.

For starters, I wrote my poem through Seth’s perspective as if she were speaking to Beloved. This is because throughout the story Beloved symbolizes the past that tries to come back and haunt one in the future. Beloved symbolizes PTSD since she embodies the past, which causes Seth’s mind to stay trapped in the traumatic experiences she’s been through, such as having killed Beloved. In my poem I mention, “Maybe in death I will break free from these chains that have been casted upon me since the day my mother left.” I said this because Seth’s mother plays a role in Seth’s trauma. Her mother was killed, when Seth was only a young girl leaving her in the hands of slavery all alone. This marked the beginning to a long tragic future, from this point on Seth only experienced more traumatic experiences like this one. In the poem I made Seth admit her mistake to Beloved and apologize, it is pretty clear that Seth feels guilty and carries the burden of having killed Beloved, which is why she tries to care for her spirit. In my poem Seth explains why she killed Beloved, like in the story. “‘It worked,’ she said. ‘How? Your boys are gone, you don’t know where. One girl dead, the other won’t leave the yard. How did it work?’ ‘They ain’t at Sweet Home. Schoolteacher ain’t got em.’” (Beloved, pg. 84) Here Seth converses with Paul D about having killed Beloved. She explains how she did it to protect her children from slavery, from going through what she went through. Although attempting to kill her children wasn’t right, Seth was simply traumatized and worried about passing on the tragic fate of slavery to her chlidren like her mother had done to her, so she did the first thing she could think of, as wrong as it was and and as guilty as she felt. In my poem I mentioned Schoolteacher as he played another big role in Seth’s trauma. He abused and made her life so miserable that she went as far as killing one of her children to protect them from him, which shows how much she truly feared him. At one point in the story, Seth almost kills a Caucasian man whom she confused for Schoolteacher, which is why I mentioned “His face I can still see in that of every white man.” Lastly, I also mentioned how Seth wants Beloved but isn’t what she needs, since Beloved is already part of the past and there is no way to bring her back, so the only way for Seth to move on is for Beloved to be gone.

In my painting, I painted a naked girl sitting in the corner of an empty room looking sad and in pain; This girl represents Seth. The girl is seen chained up to another girl who is hovering over her as a ghost; This ghost girl represents Beloved. I painted a scary shadow that looks like a monster coming out of the ghost girl and hovering over the naked girl as if it’s torturing her. The reason why I painted this is because the monster represents the past/PTSD who is torturing the naked girl sitting, Seth. The monster is coming out of the ghost girl, Beloved, since with her presence Beloved brought on the past, enslaving Seth to her traumatizing memories which is why they’re both chained together. The important colors in the painting are black and grey, which are meant to symbolize the darkness, struggle and sadness that comes with PTSD. Right next to the sitting girl I painted a key, which represents a way out, freedom and hope. The naked girl can grab the key and escape out the door or out the window, eventhough it may feel impossible because of the chains that tie her to her PTSD. However with the key I wanted to illustrate that there is always hope and faith for those with trauma. That there is so much more to their life and that they don’t have to quit, it’s a symbolism to continue believing. “‘Sethe,’ he says, ‘me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.’ He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. ‘You your best thing, Sethe. You are.’ His holding fingers are holding hers. ‘Me? Me?.’ (Beloved, pg 138) We can see this sign of hope in the end of the story where once Beloved leaves, Seth gets a chance to have a better life with her lover, Paul D.

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