What's up with Beloved's Sweet Tooth?: Critical Lens Close Reading

The following passage is from pages 66 and 67 of the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison:

...From that moment and through everything that followed, sugar could always be counted on to please her. It was as though sweet things were what she was born for. Honey as well as the wax it came in, sugar sandwiches, the sludgy molasses gone hard and brutal in the can, lemonade, taffy and any type of dessert Sethe brought home from the restaurant. She gnawed a cane stick to flax and kept the strings in her mouth long after the syrup had been sucked away. Denver laughed, Sethe smiled and Paul D said it made him sick to his stomach. [...] 

         "You just gonna feed her? From now on?" Paul D, feeling ungenerous, and surprised by it, heard the irritability in his voice. 

         "Denver likes her. She's no real trouble. I thought we'd wait till her breath was better. She still sounds a little lumbar to me." (66-67)

The psychoanalytical lens looks at a text through the examination of subconscious desires, the personality forms of the id, ego, and superego, and other Freudian psychoanalytical theories. By using this lens, the reader can develop a sense of the potential reasons and motivations behind characters' actions and thoughts.

According to Freudian theory, humans possess three distinct forms of personality. These are the id, ego, and superego. Each describe and give reason to our actions, thoughts, and general behavior. In the novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison, we see certain characters conveyed as symbols of the three factors of personality. Beloved, Sethe’s dead baby who mysteriously appears in the physical form at their house one evening, represents the id. The id, being the instinctual and impulsive form of personality, drives our wants, desires, and bodily needs. It is the only one of the three personality forms that we are born with, and it remains a driving factor and motivator of our behavior throughout the stages of life. Morrison portrays Beloved and her desires and effects on the people around her as a symbol of the the id through various literary techniques such as connotation and symbolism as well as characterization.

Morrison uses Beloved’s desires to clearly illustrate her connection and symbolization of the id. When she appears in front Sethe’s house the night of the carnival, Sethe, Denver, and Paul D decide to take Beloved in and care for her. They quickly realize that she has a strong craving for sugar.  Morrison uses the sugar and “sweet things” which Beloved craves to symbolize our desires and impulses which the id acts on. The id’s actions revolve around what is known as the pleasure principle, which is the motivating psychic force which draws us to desire immediate gratification. As sugar often provides us with an immediate gratification, Morrison utilizes Beloved’s craving for sugar to further convey her character as a symbol of the id.  In the text, Morrison describes how she seems to be “born for” sweet things, which expresses the innate instinctually of the id. In addition to this, being Sethe’s dead baby, Beloved possesses an unrestrained childlike impulsiveness in her desires and actions. This characterization creates a clear representation of the instinctual cravings and impulses of the id. Morrison also uses the saccharine and somewhat destructive connotation of the “hard and brutal” “sludgy molasses” when describing the “sweet things” which Beloved desires to illustrate how the id often leads us to crave things which can be immoral or malignant in their nature. By doing so, Morrison portrays Beloved and her wants or desires as somewhat poisonous. This characterization of Beloved also reflects how she appeared in the novel at a time when Sethe, Paul D, and Denver were just beginning to feel like a family, and disrupted the newfound peace and harmony between them.

In addition to her desires, Beloved’s effect on the people around her also demonstrate her connection to the id. For example, after he, Sethe, and Denver take in and begin caring for Beloved, Paul D develops a certain “irritability” and lack of generosity towards Beloved; this hostile attitude towards her illustrates how giving in the the id’s desires can cause others around us to feel aggravated and negative towards us and our selfish behavior. In contrast, the attentive care which Denver and Sethe give to Beloved express how tempting it can be to obey the cravings of the id. Sethe tells Paul D that Beloved is “no real trouble”, even though she has, and continues to do so later on in the novel, caused significant disruption within the family. The way Morrison characterizes Beloved in different ways through the eyes of both Paul D and Sethe, as well as Denver, illustrates how the id can cause us to act on impulses which may exasperate or bother others around us, yet it still causes us to feel strongly inclined to give in to its cravings and desires.

Ultimately, Morrison uses various literary techniques such as connotation, symbolism, and characterization to portray Beloved as a symbol of the id. Beloved’s strong cravings for sugar as well as the way characters such as Paul D and Sethe perceive her and develop certain attitudes towards her, represent characteristics of the id and how it drives impulsiveness and instinctual behavior.