The following themes & topics for Toni Morrison's Beloved may help you discover your own topic for an essay.
1. The importance of community: They let Sethe know when she's gone too far; they help to save her at the end.
2. Parallels with The Scarlet Letter
3.Definition of Love: Sixo & 30 mile woman; Paul D. & Sethe; Halle & his mother; Stamp Paid & the town
3. Symbols
4. Bio of Toni Morrison & why she wrote Beloved. (Parallel with Hawthorne)
5. The Effects of Slavery: deface, denigrate and dirty the individual; effects of slavery on whites: (they don't know when to stop)
6. Devner, Sethe, Baby Suggs: Their response to adversity is a factor of the length of time they were held in slavery.
7. Style of Beloved: Fragmented; stream of consciousness reflecting intertwining of past & present; shifting p.o.v.'s; metaphoric (poetic) language
8. Who is Beloved? Ghost? Ghosts? Real person?
9. The relationship between Sethe & Beloved: From love to abuse
10. Disfunctional families/relationships --what happens when past, present and future aren't ordered correctly
11. The lesson of love throughout the novel: "You are your own best thing, Sethe" and what happens when that reality is denied.
12. What Christian symbols appear throughout the book? Are these symbols strictly Christian or mixed with non-Christian influences?
13. Why does Beloved want to become Sethe? Why does Sethe give herself up so easily? Why does she not want forgiveness?
14. Why do the whites in the story treat blacks so harshly? What reasons does the book give for this? How do the victimizers become the victims?
15. What is the symbolic function of mother's milk in Beloved? What do Sethe's breasts symbolize?
16. What is the function of the revolving points of view? Why does Morrison choose to tell Beloved from so many different points of view and what is the effect of this?
17. How do each of the three family members &emdash; Baby Suggs, Sethe & Denver &emdash; deal with adversity? To what extent does their time spent as slaves alter their ability to cope with adversity?
18. What significance does color have in the story, especially Baby Suggs focus on color at the end of her life?
19. What lessons do the characters learn in the story? Do they grow or are they static characters?
20. What motivates the characters? Why do they behave the way they do? Why does Sethe kill her child? Why does Beloved return? Why does Denver feel so close to Beloved? Why does she switch alliances at the end? Why does Sethe not want to be forgiven? Why does Beloved not want to forgive? Don't merely answer these questions. Go further. Play at psychoanalyzing one or more characters, showing how his or her history, situation, character make up and societal influences lead them to certain behavior.
21. What are the various white attitudes towards blacks as evidenced by the Bodwins, the Garners and Schoolteacher?
22. What does Morrison mean by "rememory," and how does Beloved fit into this idea? Is she a rememory or something that appears apart from memory, apart from an experience of this world?
23. What role does Stamp Paid play in the story? Why did he rename himself? How does he ferry meaning as well as slaves in the story?
24. How would you describe Morrison's spiritual philosophy? What gives us meaning? What redeems us from sin? Does Nature play a role in this? What sustains us in our hard times? What role does community play in our search for meaning and in our struggle for happiness?