Beloved

The ghost, sometimes referred to as the haint, is the spirit of Sethe’s baby daughter who haunts house 124. A temperamental spirit whose behavior vacillates between calm and turbulent, the ghost reflects the violent conditions under which Sethe’s baby daughter died. In its invisible form, the ghost is also a representation of Sethe’s residual anger and pain over the hardships she experienced during her enslavement. Despite the unstable nature of her pain, Sethe’s repression causes her to ignore the magnitude of her suffering as well as the extent of the ghost’s destruction in the house. Paul D suggests to Sethe that the ghost’s temper may have something to do with an unfulfilled desire: “Must be something you got it wants” (16). As Paul D notices, the ghost is attached to Sethe’s traumas and reacts to the intensity of her internal struggle.

The ghost eventually takes on corporeal form as Beloved when Paul D chases the spirit out of the house. In her the form of a beautiful young woman, the ghost becomes even more frightening and dangerous, as she cannot be physically ignored in the way the spirit, who came and went, could. Beloved quickly becomes a permanent resident of 124, growing in strength when the three women live alone together in the house.