Sethe does not see death as such an opposing alternative compared to the life she remembers. Beloved, seen as the ghost-daughter, is returning back to her mother but she is doing so angry. She is angry for the same reasons as Sethe -- she missed out on the opportunity to be a daughter. Sethe can now take care of Beloved like she was supposed to before. Sethe sees her mother as she never did before and begins to accept her circumstance.

Beloved's identity symbolizes the ghost-child and ghost-mother of Sethe and others who passed before her. Deborah Horvitz believes the ghost represents both the dead child and the dead mother. She writes the ghost-child prompts Sethe to "remember her own mother because, in fact, the murdered daughter and the slave mother are a conflated or combined identity" (Horvitz). From this perspective, we can understand the importance of the mother/daughter relationship....
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