The immortal words, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” uttered by Cain to God are answered in the book Beloved by Toni Morrison. She responds that everyone is responsible for the people around them. The community in the book is an important influence to the fate of the protagonist, Sethe, and her family. When everyone joins together they are almost invincible because everyone is taken care of; however, as residents of 124 Bluestone Road are rejected they become vulnerable to the world beyond. The community in Beloved began as a collaborative force, that helped each other and celebrated together, but personal emotions cast 124 as an outsider and eventually liberated the family from Beloved’s presence.
At the beginning, the community surrounding the home is linked by their common heritage and struggles. They help each other, celebrate together and are all bound by a sense of equality. Although the outside world is a constant threat, within the community everyone is protected and no one is better than anyone else. Stamp Paid and Baby Suggs both served as important links to connecting the people around them. They cared for and inspired hope within everyone with their constant help and kind words. Stamp, especially, always served as an important figure to every family within the community: “Since all his visits were beneficial, his step or holler through a doorway got a bright welcome” (Morrison, 180).
He devoted his time towards assisting everyone in the community, and through this he brought them all together. Baby Suggs, before the tragic incident, was also an important individual within the community. She constantly devoted herself to all the people around her; she “loved, cautioned, fed, chastised and soothed” (92-93). Everyone respected Baby Suggs, and 124 was always a “cheerful, buzzing” (92) place where there was always and plenty of people. As a leader of the community around her, Baby Suggs was initially revered; however, her position also contributed to the exclusion of 124 Bluestone Road from the people around them.
The community around Bluestone Road was united under one provision–within the community everyone was as good as the people around them. In a world where black people were treated as lesser human beings, the community offered a cocoon where everyone was equal. Baby Suggs, with her big house and constant supply of food, threatened this equality. Her prosperity ignited jealousy that cracked the foundation of the solid community. The exclusion of Baby Suggs’s family from the community surfaced, and then grew, with the arrival of the four white men, coming to take Sethe back to Sweet Home.
As the men rode closer, no one warned or bothered to save the family from the coming peril; they “were angry at her because she had overstepped, given too much, offended them by excess” (145). As a result Sethe panicked and killed her child, and this action became the defining moment in the family’s fate. After the torment of that day the people of the community widened the gap between themselves and the family. They had witnessed the family falter and continued to watch them stumble, isolated and desperate, for eighteen years.
The people; however, were only waiting to be asked. One plea for help from the family was enough for the community to regain the balance of equality they needed. After Paul D left the house no one offered him a home to live in because, “he’s a touch proud…all he have to do is ask somebody” (195). Yet, when Denver decided to save her family, the community was more than willing to help because, “at least she had stepped out the door, [and] asked for the help she needed…” (269). They began giving donations of food, and when Beloved’s true identity was recognized the community took swift action to save the inhabitants of 124 Bluestone Road. With earnest faith and confidence the people banned together and exorcised Beloved from the home. The strong powers of cooperation and togetherness were able to defeat anything, and once again the community was restored.
The community is an important force throughout Beloved that is capable of destroying and reviving the family of 124 Bluestone Road. Throughout the stages of the book the reader is increasingly aware of the power of community. Before the Civil War slaves could only rely on each other for help–yet with the power of the white men families were often separated and everyone was on their own. After the Civil War the strength of communities was often the only protective force against the hatred and discrimination of white men. Morrison uses the story of Beloved to emphasize the strength of unity within the community against the elements of the outside world. Although the people may be jealous and stubborn, eventually their beliefs and devotion to one another free Sethe and Denver and unite the community once more.
