Ghostly Descriptions: Beloved Analysis

As Denver visits Beloved by her bed, she is startled when Beloved suddenly opens her eyes, which appear eerily empty.  In this scene, Morrison uses haunting descriptions including cold colors to suggest Beloved possesses ghostly qualities.  Morrison describes Beloved’s face as having “no trace of sleep in it” (66).  This descriptive image evokes a sense of her weariness and illness; however, the connotation of the description suggests that Beloved’s face appears blank and emotionless.  Morrison then tells how the whites of her eyes “were much too white—blue-white” (66).  In this instance, she uses colors often associated with snow and ice to show Beloved’s eyes look unnaturally cold.  In doing so, Morrison is suggesting that it appears almost as if Beloved is lifeless.  After using negation with her initial descriptions, Morrison explains how the most truly frightening aspect of Beloved’s appearance “was that deep down in those big black eyes there was no expression at all” (66).  Here, she uses dark descriptions that suggest Beloved’s eyes are completely empty.  By describing her eyes in this way, Morrison shows that although Beloved is not dead, her soul appears to be gone, for she is entirely expressionless.  Morrison uses descriptions that imply blankness, coldness, and lack of expression, which hint at Beloved’s ghostliness in order to establish an initial connection between her and Sethe’s dead daughter with whom she shares a name.