The Duality of Toni Morrison’s Beloved: Postmodern Religious Symbols That Highlight the Inherited Legacy of the American South

Abstract

Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved includes a namesake character representing both Christianity and African cosmology. Beloved is neither straightforwardly good nor evil but serves as a dualistic and spiritual symbol. Though one could interpret Morrison’s narrative to support a postmodern religious multiplicity of voices, the potentially problematic theology still allows the readers to engage in useful discussions about the spiritual and cultural inheritance of the American South. Morrison’s narrative is only compatible with a Christian or African religious lens through recognizing symbolization as a representation of cultural manifestations rather than an endorsement of multiple worldviews.

Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel Beloved highlights what Morrison is well known for: referencing the spiritual but offering no straightforward answers regarding her own theology. In keeping with Morrison’s oeuvre, Beloved also emphasizes the African American experience and the ways in which characters maintain their humanity despite dehumanizing and defeating conditions. Beloved includes a namesake character who is a murdered “crawling already? baby girl” (Morrison 1987, p. 103) returned as a woman as well as the collective memory of the “Sixty Million and more” (Morrison 1987, dedication page). Africans who died during their journey through the Middle Passage on their way to become slaves (Schwartz 1988). Though a character with such significant representations offers ample fodder for an engaging narrative, Morrison also imbued Beloved with spiritual significance: she represents both Christianity and African cosmology. Though Morrison neither confirms nor denies such a reading, one could interpret Morrison’s narrative to support a postmodern religious multiplicity of voices.

Postmodernism has many implications and has influenced many disciplines. Postmodernism rejects traditional standards and premises, deconstructing established ideas and structures and instead endorsing the value of subjectivity through lived experience and personal interpretation. As stated by Isaias Catorce of the Asbury Theological Seminary, “[P]ost-modernism seeks to dismantle Christianity by overturning traditional standards and binary oppositions” (Catorse 2013). One traditionally held binary view would be Christianity’s distinctiveness from other worldviews; however, texts like Beloved show how Morrison offers a cross pollination between indigenous African religion and Christianity, presenting the readers with questions about the theological underpinnings of such an enterprise.

Morrison is noted as a postmodernist in her craft; Chuen-Shin Tai acknowledges, “Morrison peruses postmodern devices in the use of narrative fragmentation, multiplication of voices and participatory reading” (Tai 2016, p. 227). Additionally, Morrison employs postmodern techniques through her response to and representation of the past. Morrison’s insistence on grappling with elements of history that have been overlooked or misrepresented is a postmodern rejection of an inaccurate historical past. Mariangela Palladino says of Morrison, “Through her fiction she challenges the forgetfulness that Eurocentric history has initiated” (Palladino 2008, p. 54). Rafael Pérez-Torres acknowledges something similar in noting how “Beloved challenges us to rethink the relationship between the postmodern and the marginal” (Pérez-Torres 1999, p. 181), and Kimberly Chabot Davis notes that the “novel exhibits a postmodern skepticism of sweeping historical narratives” (Davis 1998, p. 75). These observations of how Morrison utilizes postmodernism through her portrayal of memory and the passing down of the black experience are significant; however, it is a different exploration of postmodernism than the theologically focused exploration of the postmodernism utilized through enmeshing Christianity and African spirituality.

Allusions to Christianity have been often noted in Morrison’s work (see Mitchell 1991; Guth 1994; Allen 2021; Bate 2006). However, Ann-Janine Morey is one of the few to specifically connect the postmodern influence on how Morrison represents traditional Christianity, highlighting that, in Beloved, “Christ and Christianity are not denied or erased but rather displaced and relocated…Jesus can be seen as just one of the gods in a world of transience and uncertainty” (Morey 2016, p. 497). While this rejection of an ultimate master narrative of religious sovereignty works as a postmodern interpretation, it offers problematic theology that aligns with neither of the main religions Morrison utilizes. Thus, due to the problematic doctrine of attempting to merge traditional Christianity and African cosmology, it is more useful for the readers to note the dualistic religious references to engage in discussions about the spiritual and cultural inheritance of the American South from a historical rather than theologically sound perspective.

Beloved is the story of a family that is torn apart and reunited, and the way the trauma of the past influences their present. Sethe escapes from slavery as a young pregnant woman, whose three older children have already safely been brought to freedom. After a brutal journey, Sethe arrives at the home of her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, shortly after having delivered her baby en route only to discover her husband did not escape. Nevertheless, Sethe experiences a brief time of rejuvenation as she lives as a free woman and interacts with her family and the community of free people of color. However, when the slave catcher comes to reclaim Sethe and her children, she vows to never allow them to return to slavey. She cuts her infant’s throat in an attempt to protect her from enslavement and plans to do the same to her other children and herself. She is recaptured before she executes her plan and is taken to jail where she serves a sentence before being allowed to return to Baby Suggs’ because the slave catcher determines her to be too damaged to be a useful slave. The next stage of Sethe’s life is an isolated existence where Sethe suffers guilt from killing her daughter and experiences isolation from the community. Baby Suggs has died and her sons have left, so she raises her teenage daughter Denver alone until Paul D, a fellow slave from her past, arrives and begins cohabiting with them. Shortly after, Beloved appears and over the course of the novel, Sethe discovers that Beloved is an adult version of her reincarnated daughter. Sethe, Denver, and Paul D learn, through their interactions with Beloved, how to acknowledge the horrors of the past as the only way to move forward. Sethe’s catharsis occurs when she decides she should have attacked the slave catcher rather than her daughter. Beloved then leaves and Denver reconciles with the surrounding community with the promise of acceptance and a hopeful future. Sethe’s future is less clear, but the text suggests the possibility that she and Paul D will build a life together and move beyond being defined by slavery and the horrendous choices they were forced to make within that system.

Though Beloved is an influential figure in the story, she is neither straightforwardly good nor evil. She is both a healing balm and a searing forge. Recognizing Beloved as a symbol of duality, Emma Parker says, “Her [Beloved’s] ambivalence is significant as it undermines the philosophical system of mutually exclusive binary oppositions” (Parker 2001, p. 4). Morrison had extensive knowledge of the Christian doctrine, having converted to Catholicism at age twelve. She also grew up accustomed to hearing African cosmology. Speaking of the supernatural and mythic elements common in her work, she has attributed it to the stories of her matrilineage, “[A]ll of these things are all part of the mythology, the culture that I grew up in” (Morrison 2001). Therefore, her Christian and African religious allusions are artful and hardly accidental. Morrison’s reference to complicated historical influences reflects the Harlem Renaissance, when some artists identified with their African roots while others embraced a more immediate Southern heritage. Morrison suggests one does not have to choose, that both influences, for better or worse, can be acknowledged. Indeed, a large theme of her novel is that one only reconciles with the past by recognizing and accepting it. Readers can understand the dual references of African cosmology and Christianity to represent a culturally accurate picture of slave religion in the American South. However, applying a postmodern understanding of religion to Beloved, in which all religions can coexist without the practitioner ever having to align with dogmas and doctrine unique to any one faith, would be a misunderstanding of certain fundamental tenants of both Christianity and African religions.

African religious beliefs are not the only type of mythology that the readers of Beloved may call to mind, as the very concept of matricide hearkens renderings of Medea. Yet Morrison’s story is based on a historical southern woman, Margaret Garner (Wolff 1991), and the most consistent references to mythology and cultural beliefs are African. Morrison’s references to African beliefs are not overt, yet historical and anthropological evidence reveals the parallels. One aspect of indigenous spirituality that Beloved wholly portrays is reincarnation. Having a person return from the dead in another form was a common belief among the African people. H. U. Beier clarifies, “The African has a very firm belief in reincarnation” (Beier 1954, p. 329). This belief manifests itself in a variety of specific beliefs within the African culture. For example, Robert Yeates explores the Caribbean, specifically Haitian, belief in the zombi, better known in American culture as zombie, as a sort of living dead or manifestation of reincarnation that Morrison’s text may allude to (Yeates 2015). The Yoruba people specifically believe that a deceased infant can return in the form of a new infant child. Morrison alters the belief, as Beloved returns not as an infant but as an adult. However, Morrison keeps the belief that the newly reincarnated will bear the old scars of the previous life. Beier explains of the reincarnated, “The child is often identified as the previous one by a small scar that was incised on the face or body of the deceased child” (Beier 1954, p. 330). Beloved’s scar is just such a reminder of her previous life. “Sethe had seen the scar, the tip of which Denver had been looking at whenever Beloved undressed—the little curved shadow of a smile in the kootchy-kootchy-coo place under her chin” (Morrison 1987, p. 239). The scar is evidence that Morrison offers that Beloved is indeed a reincarnated child, according to the beliefs of the Yoruba people. While a modern reader may consider the appropriate response toward a reincarnated entity to be suspending disbelief against such an impossibility, the influence of African beliefs offers what some would consider a rational, though faith-based, explanation for such a phenomenon.

Because Morrison blurs the boundaries between the living and the dead, some describe Beloved as a novel that employs magical realism, blending the fantastical with the realistic. However, when Morrison asks the readers to accept a world in which the natural and supernatural regularly interact, it is not due to embracing a fantastical world; it is due to drawing on cultural beliefs that were deemed possible manifestations within the natural world. Even before Beloved returns from an infant grave in the form of a young woman, Morrison also incorporates the African belief of ghosts through the haunting of Sethe’s home: “124 WAS SPITEFUL. Full of a baby’s venom” (Morrison 1987, p. 1). Therese E. Higgins analyzes the belief that Morrison adapts, “Morrison uses the African belief of ancestral spirits returning to their living relatives’ homes by using a dead daughter—a member of the younger generation—as the spirit who returns instead of an ancestor” (Higgins 2001, p. 29). Higgins says that the ghost originated in “the cosmology of ancient Africa and the horrors which resulted from the slavery of nineteenth-century America” (Higgins 2001, p. 29). Morrison tweaked the belief relating to reincarnation to best work with the structure of the novel. Beloved’s return is not typical, but neither is it impossible.

Though acceptance of reincarnation is not a specifically African belief, the specificity of reincarnated children relates to a few African ethnic groups. Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi explains that the Yoruba people referred to those who were born again (through a reincarnation-like concept) as an abiku, and the Igbo people referred to the same type of person as an ogbanje (Ogunyemi 2002, p. 663). Both the abiku and the ogbanje are an orphaned child who travels between the living and the dead worlds (Ogunyemi 2002, p. 664). Beloved appears to travel between the worlds of the dead and the living, and her appearance is very sudden and unexplained. “Nobody saw her emerge” (Morrison 1987, p. 50). Beloved mysteriously appears at 124 for Sethe, Paul D, and Denver to find after coming home from the circus. Also, Beloved seems to be able to leave for only a moment if she so chooses. When Denver and Beloved are playing in the shed, Denver cannot find her sister and thinks she has left just as suddenly as she came. The text is unclear if Beloved really leaves or is only hiding, but the line, “There is no sight or sound of Beloved” (Morrison 1987, p. 122) alludes to Beloved’s transference from one realm to another, perhaps “a magical disappearance in a shed” (Morrison 1987, p. 123). Furthermore, at the end of the novel, Beloved leaves as mysteriously as she comes. Everyone looks for Beloved but “it was gone” (Morrison 1987, p. 267). Beloved seems to be the figure a little boy describes as “a naked woman with fish for hair” (Morrison 1987, p. 267) as she departs back to the land of the dead. Thus, Beloved is not only a reincarnated figure but conjures beliefs in an abiku or ogbanje who is able to travel from one world to the next. This ancient belief is a further correlation to the relationship Beloved holds with the concept of reincarnation as a part of the mythical. Beloved’s transience also speaks to the expendable view with which slave owners viewed their slaves. Beloved’s weak connection to time and space reflects the way slave owners enforced a short and ungrounded existence upon African Americans.

In addition to aspects of reincarnation, Beloved also represents a second indigenous belief. She may be interpreted as the embodiment of a succubus. A succubus is a female demon who appears in the night to sexually assault men. According to Casey Clabough, “In a number of African cultures…the Succubus is known as the ‘witch riding your back,’ while the Yoruba people of southwest Nigeria variantly refer to her as Ogun Our, which means ‘nocturnal warfare’” (Clabough 2010). Beloved’s sexual relations with Paul D are an example of her succubus nature. He does not want to have intercourse with her but feels helpless to refuse when she lifts up her skirts and commands him, “I want you to touch me on the inside part and call me my name” (Morrison 1987, p. 116). Beloved’s symbolic representation of a reincarnated murdered baby, with mostly unhindered wants and desires, is highlighted from a psychological perspective by the leading of her Id, satisfied in primary urges and instant gratification. Beloved’s influence over Paul D can be understood through the succubus’s power. Paul D’s aversion to lying with Beloved can be viewed as evidence of her supernatural influence over him, as Morrison says of the situation, “It was being moved, placed where she wanted him, and there was nothing he [Paul D] was able to do about it”. (Morrison 1987, p. 126). While the succubus is a terrifying figure, Morrison’s inclusion of a sexually powerful figure heightens the dynamic shift, as historically black women have been sexually exploited.

Morrison’s references to African beliefs in reincarnation/abiku or ogbanje and the succubus emphasize the influence of the past on the present, the strength of stories and belief systems even upon later generations. Morrison’s reaching back to these concepts also highlight Pan-Africanism, a purposeful returning to one’s roots, specifically African roots, and all that entails. Yet the African American identity is two-fold. It is just as influenced by the American South, and, henceforth, Christianity, as by Africa. Morrison’s allusions to Christianity speak to her knowledge and, perhaps, embracement of it. Its intermixing with ethnic spirituality is non-traditional compared to white Christianity. However, according to Nadra Nittle, “Black America regarded Christianity as a belief system of liberation and wed it with West African oral, spiritual, and folk traditions” (Nittle 2021, p. 3). Beginning with and following the Great Awakening, many enslaved African Americans adopted Christianity, seeing it as a source of hope as well as interpreting the egalitarian message of salvation for all as having eventual social and political implications for emancipation. However, this embracement of Christianity, specifically evangelical Christianity, by enslaved black people was not a wholesale endorsement of the religion practiced by the whites. According to Thomas S. Kidd, “Evangelical Christianity reminded African Americans more of their preexisting religions” (Kidd 2007, p. 214), and many African Americans went on to practice a form of Christianity that connected to some of the ideas promoted in African religions, and, according to Frank Lambert, “some parish leaders expressed alarm over heretical interpretations propagated by some blacks” (Lambert 1992, p. 18). Thus, Morrison’s interweaving of Christian and African beliefs in Beloved is not only a postmodern pastiche of religious pluralism but also a representation of the ways in which “blacks themselves constructed a usable religion from the elements at hand, freely weaving evangelicalisms and Africanisms to produce an emerging African American Christianity”. (Lambert 1992, p. 19). Despite its historical reality, an attempt to interweave two contradictory worldviews is theologically problematic. However, Morrison’s representation of the spiritual realms indicative of both African and Southern Christian culture acknowledges the complicated legacy of slavery and the diaspora that led to the blending of the two cultures and belief systems.

Morrison’s use of biblical allusion produces an enlightening effect upon the readers once her purpose is clear. Shirley Stave explains, “Predictably, Morrison incorporates biblical myth, which she characteristically re-visions to empower those marginalized by society” (Stave 1993, p. 49). Morrison incorporates biblical aspects in a way that relates to the plight of an enslaved person. The novel’s epigraph quotes Romans 9:25, saying: “I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved”. Mae G Henderson, amongst others, reveals the similarity between Romans 9:25 and Hosea 2:23. Hosea 2:23b, in which God addresses the Jewish people who have turned away from Yahweh, reads, “I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou are my people; and they shall say, ‘Thou art my God’”. Since their own antebellum slavery, African Americans have connected with the plight of the Jewish people due to their enslavement in Egypt. Though the Jews were not enslaved during the time in which Hosea was written, Morrison’s connecting African Americans to the Jews referenced in Hosea highlights the historical connection often made between African American slaves and Jewish slaves. Yet Morrison chose not to directly quote Hosea and to instead quote Paul, which widens the application of those in need of mercy and chosen to be loved. In his letter to the Roman church, Paul wrote to a congregation comprising both Jews and Gentiles (Lo 2006). Paul reminded both Jews and Gentiles that, upon accepting Christ, Gentiles are now beloved. Peggy Ochoa says, “Morrison here aligns her ‘beloved’ blacks with early Christian martyrs” (Ochoa 1999, p. 110). Though not all Romans, Paul wrote, became martyrs, the reference to Romans aligns Beloved to Christians in general. Thus, Beloved may be a spiritual representation of both the Jews and the Gentile Christians. Just as an African belief in reincarnation suggests rebirth, so too does the connection of Beloved to Christians, suggesting that those who have been reborn through the dying of their sinful selves begin a new life in Christ.

The most iconic biblical allusion that Morrison makes is to the Christ figure. It may be difficult for some readers to see the same character who is representing indigenous spirituality to be an allusion to Jesus; however, the duality of a character allows for the representation to embody differing concepts. Terry Otten comments on the biblical allusion referring to Beloved: “[S]he is on one hand ‘an evil thing,’ on the other a Christ figure come to save” (Otten 1989, p. 84). Beloved may have come to save from guilt and fear of remembering the past. Sethe is so scarred from an event that took place over twenty years ago that she is incapable of forgiving herself or allowing herself to have hope in the future. Although Beloved exhibits tough love, she forces Sethe to remember the past, and she makes it possible for Sethe to finally ask for forgiveness. “Sethe pleaded for forgiveness, counting, listing again and again her reasons: that Beloved was more important, meant more to her than her own life”. (Morrison 1987, p. 242). Even though Beloved does not vocally grant Sethe the forgiveness she so desires, the very act of confession is important for Sethe and could not have been possible without her daughter’s return.

A description of Beloved’s death and return connects to Jesus’s resurrection. Ella says that “people who die bad don’t stay in the ground” and Stamp Paid “couldn’t deny it. Jesus himself didn’t”. (Morrison 1987, p. 188). The similarity between Jesus and Beloved due to their both coming back to life opens a case for the Christ figure motif. Otten notes the impact that Beloved has on Denver, evoking a similar reaction to that of the woman with the issue of blood who touches Jesus’ garment which appears in Matthew 9: 20–22 or Luke 8:43–48. Once Denver finds her sister Beloved after her mystical disappearance in the shed, she “grabs the hem of Beloved’s skirt”. (Morrison 1987, p. 123). Otten suggests that Denver’s action is remarkably similar to that of “the suppliant touching Christ’s robe”. (Otten 1989, p. 85). Denver’s clutching of Beloved’s robe can be seen as an act of need. Beloved offers salvation from loneliness and unaddressed history; thus, Denver reaches out to her in a similar manner to that in which the woman with the issue of blood reached out for Jesus.

The interconnected relationships of Sethe, Denver, and Beloved inspire a trinitarian image if one interprets Beloved as a Christ figure, though, theologically, this cannot simultaneously coincide with the concept of Beloved offering Sethe absolution. Such imagery needs not imply that Morrison is making an argument that God is gendered female. Yet the feminine and maternal aspects of the Trinity are implied through this strong female triad. As Lynn Jainga explains, “People described God in feminine terms, not because God is actually a woman, but because feminine or maternal traits say something true about God and about their experience with God” (Japinga 1999, p. 66). Morrison takes the most vulnerable and abused and not only dignifies them but imbues them with agency by allowing them to be the vehicle through which her readers experience a trinitarian allusion, albeit an imperfect one, as the text is not allegorical. Of the interconnectedness of all three women, Morrison writes, “Whatever was happening, it only worked with three—not two”. (Morrison 1987, p. 286). Morrison references Hosea chapter 2, regarding the verse about showing mercy, yet Hosea 11 proceeds to describe God through traditionally maternal imagery, feeding, nursing, and clothing his children. Morrison highlights feminine aspects of the divine as a protector and nurturer that Denver, Beloved, and Sethe all take turns embodying as they care for one another.

The power of female solidarity through a Christian framework also extends beyond trinitarian images within Sethe’s family to the role of fictive kinship as well. In a female centric text such as Beloved, the emphasis on spirituality also highlights the way that community, specifically women’s networks with one another, is strengthened through shared beliefs and experiences. Catherine F. Musgrave et al. note, “Christian spirituality among people of color tends not to be abstract but to be deeply rooted in relationships and the community” (Musgrave et al. 2002, p. 557). Denver’s integration into the community and the hope for reintegration for Sethe occurs after their encounter with Beloved and all the spiritual dimensions to which she alludes.

Consequently, through her novel, Morrison presents a quintessence of spiritual alignments. Beloved stands for the belief in indigenous spirituality, and she stands for the hope of the Bible. She is a reference to the African belief in reincarnation and a succubus, while, at the same time, she may represent the Jewish people and the Christians of the early church as well as serve as a Christ figure. Morrison concedes multiple religious influences, and it is possible to recognize a pursuit of the divine within various belief systems and allow them to point the readers to Christ. For example, espousing the belief in the novel’s endorsement of Christianity, Emily Griesinger argues that the way “[Morrison] blends Christianity with black folklore, African tribal religion, and magical realism, does not significantly compromise her affirmation of Christianity as a source of goodness and hope in the midst of horrendous suffering and evil” (Griesinger 2001, p. 700). However, the goodness of the biblical message that Griesenger references includes distinctive messages, such as Jesus being the only means of life, rather than endorsing a belief in reincarnation through which a figure like Beloved can return to interact with loved ones on earth. Thus, a postmodern embracement of a multiplicity of religions changes the central beliefs of Christianity.

Contrasting the idea of Beloved endorsing one specific religious message, some argue that the amalgamation of multiple beliefs and heritages creates something new and powerful. For example, Yeates claims, “Formed through the mixing and competing of African, Caribbean, and Euro-American spirituality, religion, and popular culture, the hybrid assembly of the mythical and monstrous creature of Beloved establishes a new creation in an evolving transnational cultural tradition”. (Yeates 2015, p. 533). While the recognition of such a culturally evolved literary symbol can be agreed upon and may have positive implications regarding an understanding and valuing of multiculturalism, the theological implications of accepting the tenets of such a pluralistic worldview is less constructive. It is theologically misguided to use Beloved as a postmodern rejection of a metanarrative in favor of endorsing a spiritual multiplicity of voices. Morrison’s incorporation of postmodernism in craft is noteworthy. Postmodern narrative strategies serve as an effective way for Morrison to highlight the rupture of the family unit, the severing of emotional and psychological wellness, and the whitewashed accounts of slavery. However, the duality of indigenous spirituality and Christian references should not be read as vindication for reducing the authority of the Scripture to a cultural mythos. Neither should it be assumed that the marriage of multiple religions with competing worldviews allows each to keep its central tenets. Though Morrison’s exact meaning regarding spiritual matters is unclear, her narrative is only compatible with a Christian lens through the recognition of symbolization as a representation of cultural manifestations rather than an endorsement of multiple worldviews.

Morrison’s novel is an example of how a postmodern text may reject a metanarrative of endorsing one specific worldview yet still acknowledge a spiritual dimension that speaks to the readers’ desire to recognize something beyond the material. In his work The Secular Age, Charles Taylor argues that the embracement of secularism has led to an emptiness that pushes contemporary culture to embrace what previous generations rejected: the sacred and the spiritual. Taylor maintains that today’s spirituality is sought over religion, which is viewed as rigid and rule-based. Such a spirituality applies to Beloved’s characterization. The Christian allusions are general rather than specific enough to be associated with a particular denomination or affiliation, and its juxtaposition alongside African cosmology highlights a human-like tendency to look toward something greater than ourselves. Taylor’s observation of the contemporary public’s desire relates to the readers who may be drawn to Morrison’s use of spirituality, “[T]hey are seeking a kind of unity and wholeness of the self, a reclaiming of the place of feeling, against the one-sided preeminence of reason…The stress is on unity, integrity, holism, individuality” (Taylor 2007, p. 507). There is an interconnectedness that many in contemporary society desire in blending a variety of spiritual focuses, “[E]verybody will welcome, a breaking down of barriers between different religious groups”. (Taylor 2007, p. 513). Yet such an unvetted acceptance speaks to the hollowness that has resulted from secularism’s rejection of religion.

Morrison’s text is distinctively different than certain postmodern sardonic head nods toward faith. Hers aligns with the breaking down of religious barriers in which, as Ursula King puts it, “the destabilizing implications of p26ostmodern thinking” has prompted “new religious developments arising out of interfaith encounter and the search for holistic spiritualities” (King 2002, p. 365). Hers is a legitimate exploration of spirituality’s influence on the American South. Yet, without a willingness to allocate one religious worldview above another, this spirituality of rejecting nothing simultaneously cheapens everything. The unique elements that both Christianity and African cosmology hold distinctive become less powerful if put beside the other. Jesus’ lordship and power over death is unimpressive if aligned with a belief system that already accepts the possibility of the dead returning to the land of the living. Alternatively, the dread of ghostly figures able to travel between realms is diminished in light of an all-powerful God able to banish such an activity from impacting his followers.

The way in which Morrison writes of the community women’s exorcism to expunge Beloved from 124 highlights this spiritual, but not specifically religious, means in which African beliefs and Christianity are blended. “Some brought what they could and what they believed would work. Stuffed in aprons, strung around their necks, lying in the space between their breasts. Others brought Christian faith—as shield and sword”. (Morrison 1987, p. 303).

Though exorcisms have and continue to be performed within Christianity, they also appear in other religions. In Africa, typically, an indigenous medical practitioner performs the exorcism. Morrison highlights two differing beliefs the women hold: one group relies on objects, likely drawing from African rituals employing herbs, charms, and the like, whereas others rely on their Christian faith. Some may see this exorcism as something to be celebrated for its religious pluralism. However, the scene could also be viewed as highlighting the uncertainty the women experience regarding what to place their faith in. As Yeates notes, “The syncretism of their religious practices here shows how the processes of slavery have disrupted and confused identity and tradition for these characters”. (Yeates 2015, p. 516). Just as Beloved herself is dualistic with African spiritualistic and Christian allusions, so too is the practice through which the women remove Beloved. However, the impact on the women’s sense of self and heritage may represent confusion rather than confidence.

It appears to be neither God nor the occult’s power that removes Beloved, but rather the women’s ability to come together and practice eclectic rituals for the sake of communal solidarity. “[T]he voices of women searched for the right combination, the key, the chord, the sound that broke the back of words…it was a wave of sound wide enough to sound deep water and knock the pods off chestnut trees. It broke over Sethe and she trembled like the baptized in its wash”. (Morrison 1987, p. 308). Baptism is a clear Christian allusion, yet, due to the varied faith affinities during the exorcism, it is unclear which worked or if, perhaps, both belief systems are positioned as equally effective. As Taylor suggests, the intermixing of Christianity within other practices alters the perception of whether it is God’s power or simply the catharsis of being devout in some manner that matters:

[T]he gamut of beliefs in something widens, fewer declaring belief in a personal God…and more people adopt what would earlier have been seen as untenable positions, e.g., they consider themselves Catholics while not accepting crucial dogmas, or they combine Christianity with Buddhism, or they pray while not being certain they believe…All this represents the consequences of expressivist culture as it impacts on our world.

(Taylor 2007, p. 513)

The contemporary desire for spirituality through religious plurality may be what continues to draw readers to Morrison’s text. It is overtly otherworldly without clarifying Morrison’s own religious beliefs or asking the readers to identify theirs.

It would be presumptuous to assume to definitively know about Morrison’s religious and spiritual beliefs—what she correctly, and possibly incorrectly, intuited. Her work is exquisite in the craft but complicated in the message. Though the religious dualism of Beloved and the eclectic spiritual practices used to expunge her could be read as an endorsement of religious pluralism, this is not the only implication. Deconstruction can be effectively used to identify false ideas within religions and false ideas about the world. Morrison aptly deconstructs simplistic ideas about the history of slavery and the role of religion within the black culture. As Nittle notes, “When she [Morrison] uses postmodern techniques, for example, she does so with purpose and not simply for play” (Nittle 2017). Through her pastiche of spiritual references, Morrison prompts the readers to ask good questions about the spiritual and cultural inheritance of the American South. Her fundamental understanding of the divine as an entity to be taken seriously permeates her work. She believed the darker side of spirituality demands serious attention. She does not celebrate dark forces and superstitions at work in her people’s native land, but she recognizes that they exist and continue to have an influence. She prompts the readers to take spirituality seriously not just when talking about God, but also when talking about demons, when talking about the occult.

African cosmology and Christianity cannot be mixed in a universalist reading endorsing both as equally plausible possibilities or as complimentary belief systems, because neither traditional Christianity nor African beliefs adhere to such a dogma, each having theological attributes that contradict the other. Morrison’s incorporation of both belief systems offers no clear indication of her theological endorsement; this speaks to the postmodern moment in which she wrote it, exploring the possibility of becoming comfortable with ambiguity and the lack of closure or even truth. Despite its lack of theological closure, in her text, Morrison prompts the readers to recognize that the spiritual world is real, and it includes not only God and his angels but also Satan and his demons. Ephesians 6:12 states, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places”. Morrison is doing more than showing two influential aspects of African American identity. Her text prompts the readers to consider the existence of that which is non-material. Privilege and what is often considered rationalism can cause the forgetting or, perhaps, even the ignorance of ever knowing the heavy forces that are at work in some places, the bondage that occurs in places that the light has not reached or where it is being stifled. Modernity can extinguish an interest in the spiritual as primitive and unscientific. Spirituality can be pigeonholed as overtly feminine and, therefore, emotional. Yet Morrison does not shun from connecting women to the multifaceted, the primal, the spiritual, and the sacred. She shows them all as forces to be reckoned with.