Beloved: Spite from All Sides

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, spite is defined as "A strong feeling of [...] hatred or ill-will, [or an] intense grudge or desire to injure" ("spite, n."). Spite comes up many times in Beloved by Toni Morrison, beginning with the first line of the book. We see various characters have spite towards Sethe throughout the novel, especially the baby.

The novel opens with the line, "124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom" (3). Over the next paragraph, we learn that 124 is a house number on Bluestone Road and that there is a baby's ghost in the house. The baby moves and breaks furniture, leaves hand prints, and creeps out neighbors. It does not bring harm to anyone, but it doesn't make life harder for Sethe and her family, especially because no one is willing to linger around the house or even spend time with the inhabitants. At this point in the novel, we have no idea why the baby has spite for Sethe, but it does. 

When the baby comes back to the real world in the form of a girl named Beloved, she still has spite. Beloved does not express it for a long time because she is trying to hide who she is. However, when Sethe reveals that she knows who Beloved is, Beloved slowly becomes spiteful again. This is expressed in verbal and emotional abuse to Sethe, when she continuously accuses Sethe of not loving her and she constantly desires all of Sethe's food and energy and time. Sethe goes along with it because she feels the need to prove her love for Beloved. Beloved's spite slowly drains Sethe physically and emotionally. 

I would argue that the other community members in Cincinnati also feel some spite toward Sethe. Ella, who seems to be one of the more influential women in Cincinnati, is not upset with Sethe for what she did to Beloved, for Ella herself did a similar thing, Ella is upset with Sethe for carrying herself proudly afterwards. Sethe has never shown any guilt, or even self-consciousness over what she has done. This irritates the other women in the community. They don't want to hurt or her like Beloved does, but they no longer spend time with her, and they speed up their carriages as they pass 124 Bluestone Road. 

The spite towards Sethe seen in many of the characters in an important theme in the book. We do not see the spite as necessarily justifed all the time, because we are led to sympathize with Sethe throughout the novel.

Works Cited

"spite, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2016. Web. 17 December 2016.