Beloved Beloved
by Toni Morrison

Beloved is Sethe's third child, murdered at the age of one and a ghost in 124 for the next twenty years. She is reborn in that twentieth year, but though 21 years old in appearance, her mind is that of a child. Thus, Beloved both seeks Sethe's affections as well as vengeance for a murder she cannot understand. In the novel, she serves both as a character as well as a symbol for the past and the sixty-million slaves killed in the Middle Passage.