Magical Realism Fills the Gap

            While it may be considered lighthearted and maybe a bit silly at times, the genre of magical realism fuses well with the narratives surrounding slavery because it fills the gap between the modern day reader’s sense of morality and the horrible occurrences of slavery. This is the case for Beloved because the genre turns the novel into something that is closer to fantasy—something we can believe but not relate to. It creates a distance between the reader and the story, a distance that is important when speaking about a part of history that is so hard to examine.

            The supernatural elements within the novel begins when the narrative does, when author Toni Morrison writes, “124 was spiteful” (3).  Through this first sentence we identify the house as a character itself.   We learn later that the reason the house is a character is because it is being controlled by the spirit of a young girl, so young that she was never named. In later sections of the novel, we will see that “124 was loud” (199), and “124 was quiet” (281) which shows that, like any other character, 124 goes through some development. While this element may be hard to accept at first, it is one of the strongest supernatural elements and a key piece to the distance between the reader and the novel.

            Another supernatural element is the arrival of the character Beloved. While the family believes that she is merely a traveler, there is later a moment in which she and Denver bond and it is revealed that she may be the return of the baby whose spirit controlled 124. When Denver asks why she calls herself Beloved, she replies “in the dark my name is Beloved” (88). We know that the child Sethe had died before she could be named, but that the word “beloved” was inscribed on her tombstone.

Additionally, when describing where she was before she got to 124, Beloved explains that it was “dark” and that “a lot of people is down there. Some is dead” (88).

            While these supernatural elements make the novel engaging, as I have said before, it also creates a distance that makes it easier to enjoy the novel while still identifying the cruelties of slavery and the devastating conditions of life as an African American in the reconstruction era. While it is unfortunate that authors must “water-down” the concept of slavery and reconstruction, if it means that readers will be engaged in the story and want to read it then it is beneficial.