Disability and Madness as the Key Themes in Morrison's "Beloved" Novel

Beloved
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Beloved
Beloved is a novel whose storyline is about a former black slave woman named Margaret Garner who escaped managed to escape from a Kentucky plantation in 1856 together with her family. After the escape, the family sought refuge in Ohio before being recaptured by their former master and law enforcement officers. Before being recaptured, Margaret murdered her daughter to prevent returning to slavery. In the novel, Sethe, who is used to relive Margaret's story, is also a loving mother who flees with her children from a tyrant master referred to as “Schoolteacher.” Just like Margaret, Sethe is recaptured together with her family. She tries to kill her children to prevent them from going back to slavery. However, she doesn’t manage to kill them all but only kills her 2-year-old daughter before her master, who believes that she is crazy, recaptures her. She is taken back to slavery where she undergoes a horrendous experience as a slave who is haunted by her dead daughter’s ghost. She inscribes "Beloved" on her daughter's tombstone, giving the novel its name.
Disability and madness are key themes in Morrison's novel "Beloved." Sethe is scarred by slavery in two ways. Firstly, representing physical disfigurement/ disability, she bears a disfiguring scar on her back due to vicious whipping during enslavement. Secondly, she is maddened by the memory of how she murdered her daughter Beloved. Just like her previous beating leaves a permanent scar on her body, her dead daughter Belove...