Sethe

Sethe is a strong woman who lives in an oppressive society that will not allow her to be nurtured or to nurture others.  Even as an adult, she is severely hurt from her lack of a true mother.  Even in trying to make up for her mother’s absence by being a loving and nurturing mother herself, the system of slavery prohibits this by taking her children away from her as infants.  One of the few things she knows about being a mother is that her milk is essential to her children, but when she was robbed of her milk by the schoolteacher’s nephews, they stole her ability to nurture.  Since she thought that the next world would be better than this one, Sethe tries to kill her children to spare them the terrors of growing up in slavery.  Although she believes she was acting in good faith, she also recognizes that she had no right to murder her baby, and she is haunted with this guilt throughout the novel.  Sethe recovers by facing and dealing with her past, which comes back in the form of Beloved.  In the end, Sethe accepts herself and takes a course towards entirety. 

Beloved

                Beloved is the symbol of accumulated pain of the black community that has suffered through racism and slaver.  She also means something different to everyone with whom she interacts.  To Sethe, she represents a chance for her to compensate her past actions.  To Paul D, she is a lover who opens his heart while attempting to steal Sethe away form him.  To Denver, she provides friendship and a intermission from her loneliness.  To the community, she is the manifestation of all children tossed away from slave ships and form slave mothers who could not hold onto them.

Paul D

Paul D is bound by slavery and its castrating effects, and therefore has difficulty verbalizing his true feelings.  Paul D also struggles with the problem of defining his masculinity because of the schoolteacher who deprived him of his self-respect.  After years of roaming, he seeks Sethe and comes to terms with his past.  At the end of the novel, after leaving and returning to her, Paul D manages to convince Sethe that she is her own best thing.  By loving and accepting her, he also heals himself.

Denver

                Denver lived all of the 18 years of her live separated form the community because of her mother’s actions.  When Beloved nearly swallows Sethe, Denver goes into the community she never knew and dares to ask for help.  By doing this, Denver sparks the reunion of the community and the healing of her relationship with her mother and of herself. 

Baby Suggs