by the ghost of her dead child, who returns as a
living person seeking retribution for Sethe’s hei-
nous crime.
Sethe, the child of a slave mother who chose
to carry her to full term rather than abort her as
she had done several other pregnancies in revolt
against the system of slavery, theoretically com-
mits the most dangerous crime a slave mother
could commit: She not only loved but also
claimed rights to her own children, who were, in
most cases, the legal property of the slave owner.
In Sethe’s case, as she tells PAU L D, also a Sweet
Home slave, Beloved is “my best thing” (Beloved
272). In attempting to explain her actions to Paul
D, who cannot understand how she could know-
ingly make such a costly mistake, Sethe claims
ownership of her children and the right to act as
their agent and protector: “I took and put my ba-
bies where they’d be safe” (164). Paul D concludes
that Sethe, who in his mind clearly did not un-
derstand her status and role in the slave economy,
“talked about love like any other woman; talked
about baby clothes like any other woman....
Sethe didn’t know where the world stopped and
she began” (164). He accuses Sethe of having a
love that was too thick. She responds, “Love is or
it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all” (164).
As fictional character, Sethe is a complex
woman, mother, friend, wife, and lover. As a fugi-
tive, her goal is to reach her destination in order to
nurse her infant daughter. She indulges and dotes
on her daughters, Beloved and Denver; she is sad-
dened by the news of the tragic end of her hus-
band, Halle, and commits herself to caring for his
mother, BABY SUGGS, whose freedom her husband
had bought while he was still in slavery. She enjoys
the intimacy she shares with Paul D, who searches
for her to form a family for 25 years after they
were separated. She is nurtured by the community
of women she enters in Cincinnati who help her
mend, particularly Baby Suggs. Sethe is eventu-
ally pardoned and rescued by the women in the
larger community, whom she had offended with
her murderous act. En route to freedom, Sethe had
initiated a friendship with Amy, a young runaway
indentured white girl, revealing, in the end, the
similarities of their oppression as women, despite
their racial differences. Significantly, Amy, like
Ella and the women who rescue Sethe at the end
of the novel and like Baby Suggs and her spiritual
sermons in The Clearing, also becomes central to
Sethe’s healing and restoration. By the end of the
novel, Sethe comes to the realization, with encour-
agement from Paul D, that she, not her children,
is her own “best thing”—that she has not merely
yesterdays but “some kind of tomorrow” (273)
ahead of her.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Knopf, 1987.
Wilfred D. SamuelsShade: An Anthology of Fiction by Gay
Men of African Descent Bruce Morrow
and Charles H. Rowell, eds. (1996)
With GO THE WAY YOUR BLOOD BEATS, BROTHER
TO BROTHER, and In the Life, Shade is part of the
“national, public black gay and lesbian cultural ap-
paratus,” which, according to W. Lawrence Hogue,
was created to enhance an “Africentric gay and
lesbian community building” (201). Shade’s con-
tributors and stories cross multiple borders to
explore the lives of black homosexuals who live
in Columbian, Creole, West Indian, and Puerto
Rican communities and settings. Veterans, lawyers,
travelers, and young men getting by populate its
global landscape. Its stories spin a delicate tapestry
of truths that transcend geography to reveal the
universal isolation, escapist mentality, and overall
quest for sexual openness and freedom of the cen-
tral characters.
Introduced by SAMUEL DELANY, Shade rep-
resents globally the texture of ordinary lives of
black gay men. Common histories unfold in Larry
Duplechan’s “Zazoo,” Robert E. Penn’s “Uncle Eu-
gene,” and Brian Keith Jackson’s “The View from
Here.” Commercial urban settings and persua-
sions cloak L. Phillip Richardson’s protagonist,
George, in “Powers That Be,” as he embarks on
a routine life of homosexual peep shows, a diet
of French fries, and unemployment. The exotic
dominates Jaime Manrique’s surrealistic “TwilightShade: An Anthology of Fiction by Gay Men of African Descent 455