Beloved

Beloved is a novel largely based around love. Beloved loves Sethe, Denver loves Beloved, Paul D loves Sethe. The novel circulates because of the love that fuels it. In that love, I see a lot of strenght and serious weakness. The characters are strengthened by healthy love but are weakened when love hurts them. Beloved experiences vast extremes of both. Before the novel even begins Sethe has murdered Beloved so she has no chance at life until she comes back. Beloved is forced to confront the pain of knowing her mother murdered her yet her desire to be a part of Sethe. Similarly, Denver and Sethe experience this strength and weakness bred by love. Denver loves Beloved deeply, yet is rejected by her when Sethe comes on the scene. Sethe has dealt with fierce rejection as well, having to deal with the insanity and possible death of her husband and the new man in her life. She has to accept that her previous actions are affecting her current life and cannot escape her past. She loves her present life but is constantly suffering because of what happened before. For my big question, the claim I could make is that mankind is both strong and weak, but the amount of love they have and the condition of that love determines this.