Toni Morrison’s story Beloved is an amazing novel that grips into reality which portrays scenes of rape and violence to explore just how cruel mankind is naturally as well as the affects it has on the main characters Sethe and Beloved. The main point though is just how broken it can leave a person when another human being causes them enough harm to be haunted by it on a day to day basis. All around the story Morrison uses both Sethe and Beloved to portray the effects of human cruelty and mistakes.

A character from Beloved whom is greatly affected by rape throughout the story is Beloved, one of the leading roles throughout this story and a child ghost who haunts Sethe throughout the story and gives consequence to her actions prior, as a result many believe her to be a bad spirit but in the words of Denver, “[She is] rebuked. Lonely and rebuked”. Beloved is introduced in the beginning as a character who drives others away but we later see that she is much more complex than that. Not it’s true that some of the things she does in the story can be justifications that she is only meant to drive a wedge between others such as the introduction of Paul D and Beloved how many times that she tries to scare him away. But when it was said that she she was “rebuked” it was justified in having the emotional scars left behind by a traumatic experience. Beloved seemed to be growing into a representation of Sethe as the story progresses so as Sethe’s emotions transferred into her it made sense that Beloved would be untrusting of others. How could you trust anyone so easily after having been abused by so many your entire life, and with a character like Beloved not even having lived a life because her own mother was fearful of what abuse she could have gone through in her life. Beloved could have easily changed her life around and this could have been not even a fantasy if she had lived but then perhaps she’d still be turning into Sethe with having then gone through similar experiences as her.

Yet even through her death and her haunting and her finally leaving most people at the end of the story begin to have that feeling anyways. Although this time without her, no longer do people fear passing by the house 124 and with the return of many into Sethe’s life she seems to progress herself. That’s what needed to be done all along though, because with a constant daily reminder of your own mistakes which was what Beloved was to Sethe you could never get over it, but after you get rid of it you really do get a sense of peace. Humanity seems to be the most wicked of all the creatures on earth and also the most deceptive, turning on each other at the most continuous times. It doesn’t give much for the neighbors to have turned on the Beloved family but progressively in the end they return and after a bit they act as if though they never were ignoring that family. No other species on the planet seems to have as much conflict with one another as humans do. It is those harmful effects which leave tremendous scars on a person's life and it is that in which the story conveys through the relationship of Beloved and Sethe.