A discussion into the nature and function of the character 'Beloved' In Toni Morrison's book of the same name.

Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize winning book is a masterfully written tale. Beloved begins in the late 1800's in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sethe, a former slave, lives with her eighteen-year-old daughter Denver. Sethe's mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, lived with them until her death eight years earlier. Just before Baby Suggs's death, Sethe's two sons, Howard and Buglar, ran away. Sethe believes they fled because of the malevolent presence of an abusive ghost that haunts their house at 124 Bluestone …

…that the characters of the novel haunt even the author. It is more likely that, with a strong theme of memories, and past merging with present, that the line 'This is not a story to pass on' means both that this is not a story to be ignored or forgotten. Traces of the past will always exist, the trick is, as Beloved teaches us, is to find a balance between the past and the future