I think the Toni Morrison wrote this story to show us the realism of what slavery was like for the African Americans before their freedom. The writer uses examples of the pain these characters she created had to go through out their lives. Their lives were always difficult, they were oppressed because they were back, they had no freedom to be themselves, their identities were taken away.  “Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was, but i wasn’t allowed to be and stay what i was.Even if you cooked him,you’d be cooking a rooster named Mister.But wasn’t no way i’d ever be Paul D again, living or dead.Schoolteacher changed me. I was something else and that something was less than a chicken sitting in the sun on a tub”. (pg.86) Like Paul D who says that the rooster had the right to be who the animal wanted to be, but he couldn’t. The rooster had a name being it an animal, but Paul D was treated worse than an animal being himself a human with no real name.

Sethe was another character that Toni Morrison used to describe the hardships of many real like slaves. Sethe was raped and tortured, her family was taken away, she had to protect her children from whatever danger came their way, even if it meant killing her children like she killed her baby daughter.There was many other characters being mentioned in the book but she took her time to emphasize  Paul D’s and Sethe’s situations and develop them through-out  the story of Beloved. I think that there were many slaves who’s stories that were told through generations about what they went through and the bravery that they had  might have motivated Toni to write a fiction novel of slaves. I can understand from each character that they showed bravery in every way, when it came to protecting their own and gaining their freedom that was taken away by their ‘masters’.

I think the phrase “It was not a story to pass on” comments on how horrific the story was. No one truly wants to remember and consider a story in which a mother murders her child to save her from slavery and the pain all these characters went through. But by saying it’s “not a story to pass on”, Toni Morrison is saying it’s not a nice, pleasant story, it’s not a story that many people like to hear. The characters wanted to forget their past which also included “beloved” from their memories, they wanted to continue with their lives with out having the haunting in 124.