Beloved: Mid Book Test
IB Literature: Part 4
Directions: Choose one prompt from each category to answer in a meaningful response. Your response
must contain an insightful answer to the question (thesis), evidence from the text to support your
answer (concrete detail/s), and analysis that explains your evidence (commentary).
Category 1:
1. Paul D says it is a bad idea for ex-slaves to love their children too much. Discuss this statement,
drawing two examples from the book.
2. A ghost haunts 124. What do you think the ghost symbolizes? Why do you think the characters
are so ready to believe in a ghost?
3. In the book, Sethe tried to kill her children and succeeded in killing one. How has it affected the
family unit? The community?
4. Morrison is sympathetic to Paul D: he struggles throughout Part 1 to assert his manhood. What
has disconnected him from himself?
5. Beloved is character with multiple possible identities and purposes. In your opinion, what or
who is Beloved? Support your answer.
Category 2:
6. Love is constant pursuit in literary fiction—but often it negatively influences, harms, or
otherwise ruins protagonists who seek it. Analyze how love is a destructive force over the
characters of Beloved, and explain the author’s purpose in characterizing love this way in lights
of the work’s major themes.
7. Memories often have a powerful influence on the identity and growth of characters. Analyze the
impact of memory on characters in Beloved, and explain the significance of suffering and coping
with the past to the novel’s meaning.