Freedom and Independence in BelovedToni Morrison's important novel, Beloved, is a powerful image of the black American experience. Exploring the impact of slavery on the community, Beloved evolves around issues of race, gender and the supernatural. By revealing the history of slavery and its components, Morrison declares the importance of independence as best described by Sixo. The combination of an individual within a community exhibits the central theme of moving from slavery to freedom and reconnecting with family and community. Sixo is one of nine slaves living on Sweet Home, a plantation in Kentucky. A young man of around twenty, Morrison presents him without explanation as “the wild man” (11). Later, Paul D describes Sixo as “an Indigo with a fiery red tongue” (21). He is closer to the African experience than to other slaves. Morrison portrays Sixo as a strange man in an attempt to emphasize the idea of ​​an individual in a community. The community at Sweet Home is the only reassuring object that the slaves possess. Relations between fellow slaves create a “simulation” of community, which is enough to satisfy everyone. Morrison uses Sixo as a rebel and an intelligent one, who refuses to conform to his predicament. Physically enslaved, Sixo rejects his position and remains a fiery man who takes nightly walks and dances among the trees to keep his bloodlines open. Although black sexuality is dominated by slavery, he chooses his own woman and controls his own destiny. Sixo “planned down to the minute a thirty-mile trip to see a woman.” (21) Despite the limitations of slavery, Sixo asserts his independence and seeks a better life and his own family. In an attempt to free themselves from the restraint...... middle of paper ......Sixo's characterization defines how slaves managed to remain people despite slavery. Morrison places Sixo in the novel Beloved, to express the manifestation of community as well as individualism. Sixo uses the strengths of the Sweet Home community to independently pursue its own identity. Without the cohesive community of Sweet Home, Sixo would not have been able to venture on journey after journey in search of personal freedom. The stable community allowed Sixo to express a rebellious independence, which otherwise would have been lost. Sixo retained a sense of self, lost by many others. Beloved explains that the independent spirit and belief in self-worth cannot be maintained without the presence of an impervious community and the individual desire for freedom. Works Cited: Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York, Penguin Books USA Inc., 1988.