“Listened Too for the Unnamed”

Resentment in Toni Morrison´s Beloved

Abstract

Drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche’s theorizations of the moral origin of resentment, I present an analysis of affection representations in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved (1987). In house number 124 on the Bluestone Street, resentment takes the form of a young undead girl; resident in this space, she gains weight, paralyzes time and prevents the other inhabitants of the house from moving on. Resentment in the narrative both summons and displaces the Nietzsche’s theoretical underpinning when it puts on stage the United States' slavery past. Resentment is a poisonous affection that denies any reckoning, updates the past and prevents the dead from dying definitely. However, in the face of historical atrocities, and in accordance with Jean Améry’s works (1977), perhaps the best way to avoid repeating the same mistakes is to allow oneself to be poisoned sometimes.