The Power of Trauma: Understanding "Beloved" Anonymous 11th Grade

Trauma is a ghost, and memories can be haunting. Each has the ability to drive a person to madness, or to inspire a certain enlightened strength in him. The capacity of someone to act with resilience, despite the severity of his detriment, determines the ways in which his experiences will affect him, and in turn, whether those effects will have a positive or negative influence on his life moving forward. Toni Morrison’s, Beloved, demonstrates the relentless effects of trauma on its victims, regardless of an incident’s severity, and seamlessly depicts both the positive outcomes and negative consequences that stem from the way in which a person handles his plight. In this, Morrison advocates the power of traumatic experiences, as they can evoke anything from empathy to insanity, and the importance of remaining resilient in trying times. Each character in Beloved suffers some sort of damaging experience that either fills them with a sense of compassion, or pushes them towards their own demise. For a person to apply his pain towards personal growth, and exert unbeknownst strength in order to overcome the traumatic effects of his agony, sets the stage for a more beautiful and enlightened future.

The weight of one person’s trauma...