Beauty In Hell the Psychoanalytical Aspect

From “Beloved” by Toni Morrison

There had been a simple place, one in which on the outside appeared to be a quaint farm with only farm troubles at the most. It was when you went inside that the true horrors of slavery unraveled.  As Sethe looked back at her life there was always an image that could never escape her mind as hard as she tried. She remember and “there was not a leaf on that farm that did not make her want to scream” in front of her, “it rolled itself out before her in shameless beauty. It never looked as terrible as it was and it made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too” (7.1).  A simple thought in the back of Sethe’s head, one in which haunted her for she knew that it could have been true if a place such as Sweet home where so many horrible things happened could look as magnificent as it was. It seemed interesting how many people claim the devil to be handsome, that being how he gets people. As if it’s only the  things that cause us harm in which are the prettiest and what humans are naturally attracted to. It’s important to acknowledge the fact that these farms no matter how beautiful the scenery was that many African Americans had worked the land a few years prior before the ending of the Civil War. Sethe struggles with letting go of the past, she knows some of the decisions she had to make were for the right reasons but with negative consequences. It might explain why the ghost of Beloved is even still around. It is obvious that after such a horrible past in Sweet Home that there would be resentment towards it, but all it is doing is hurting herself more than she is to anyone else.

When Morrison writes “there was not a leaf on that farm that did not make her want to scream” she’s using a hyperbole, obviously not every leaf actually made her scream. But the pain within her made it seem that way. When the quote writes “it rolled itself out before her in shameless beauty” it seemed as if though it creeped up on her. The same way that hell and demons might enter shamelessly and without warning into another person's life. It was a bit ironic that it was always the beautiful things in life that made our pasts dismal. It may not have looked bad on the outside but once you got past the first layer things would go bad. Sethe seems to be controlled mostly by her Id in the Freudian aspect always acting upon an impulse because of the situation present. Throughout this quote she might not seem to be acting upon anything harshly but her judgement sure is quick. The reasoning behind all that’s been done whether here or in a different part of the book seems to be “whatever feels right, you must do it”.