Beloved by Toni Morrison is a Haunted House novel

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:02]Beloved begins as a haunted house before becoming a ghost story that is equal parts haunted and haunting.

[00:00:09]It is perhaps the most metafictional text we have taken on to date because when we read Beloved, we are forced to reckon with the historical traumas of slavery wrought on the literal backs of black people that are represented through the many hauntings of Morrison's text.

[00:00:25]The novel is filled with awful images of lynchings, abuse, and infanticide, leaving us to question whether or not we can find joy in work that depicts so many, too many, real-life horrors for the descendants of chattel slavery.

[00:00:39]Here, the horror is not separated from the world in which we live. It is not a thing that should not be that lingers in a dark hallway or monster from another world that intrudes into our own.

[00:00:51]Instead, it is the smooth operation of a world that treats and has treated people like property.

[00:00:56]In fact, the story is based on the real events in the life of Margaret Garner, an enslaved woman who fled to Ohio and was confronted by the most difficult decision a parent could possibly make.

[00:01:08]When we read Beloved, we are confronted not only with the horrors of a haunted house, or the ghostly movements of a long-dead child, but by the justified desire for an apocalypse.

[00:01:20]As we dive deep into Toni Morrison's classic, we begin by reading it as a haunted house tale.

[00:01:26]But if you've listened to the previous episodes in our Haunted House series, you know that we've offered an argument that America itself is haunted.

[00:01:36]And Beloved offers another chapter, another example, and another piece of evidence for that claim.

[00:01:43]So, grab your spectacles. We're getting literary.

[00:01:46]The prose is about to get lyrical, and the turns are going to be heartbreaking.

[00:01:52]But if you get lost along the way, just ask for directions on the bridge and look for us in the clearing.

[00:01:58]We'll be there questioning whether we are haunted or we are haunting.