Finding the Antagonist of the Story

I am almost halfway through the novel, but there is not a clear antagonist in it. There is Beloved, who, although chokes Sethe and comes on to Paul D, consistently shows the love she has in her heart. While she is more than a tad bit eerie, I can't quite label her as 'the bad guy'.

There's also Paul D, who is always on the move and hurts Sethe's heart when he tells her about Halle, but falls more and more in love with her each day. Once again, I can't positively call him the antagonist because of the love  he has for Sethe.

Maybe it's a competition for Sethe's heart: Beloved vs. Paul D. Or perhaps a battle for Beloved: Denver vs. Sethe. In such a clear cut match, one must be labeled a protagonist, the other an antagonist. However, I don't think that's it either. The competition they face they are not fully aware of. Each vying character wants to feel loved, but in such a battle, winners and losers are not required to be designated. 

The antagonist could also be the baby ghost, but Sethe has already said it is a sad spirit, not an evil one. Also, Denver enjoys its company. Since its presence is missed, it must not be so much of a burden to be called an antagonist. 

In every good novel, someone must play the role of antagonist. And since this is clearly (or at least, in my opinion) a very good novel, there has to be one. It is possible that I have not yet discovered the intended 'bad guy' of the book yet or maybe that I have overlooked more major evil characteristics in someone who has already been introduced. However, I have concluded that this story's antagonist is more than just one person particularly. It is a group of people: white people.

Also, with every good argument, there is a call for textual evidence:

"Those white things have taken all I had or dreamed," she said, "and broke my heartstrings too. There is no bad luck in the world but whitefolks" (pages 104-105).

Morrison spends a lot of time describing the actions of white people, whether they be cruel plantation owners, an equally cruel schoolteacher, boys looking to take advantage of a colored woman, or those few white people who actually wish to help. It has commonly been stated over the past nearly 200 years that slavery is immoral. Morrison depicts the immorality in slavery, by describing the living quarters of blacks and the severity of their beatings. 

I find it strange that Baby Suggs would blame only white people for the bad luck in the world. Thinking about it more, it makes sense. Baby Suggs has been deprived of all eight of her children due to the inherent superiority of the white race. Her children have either been sold as slaves or driven away by the coldness in racial discrimination. Her house is also haunted by a baby's ghost. It is a ghost of a baby who died at the hands of her mother so she would not have to go through the cruel punishment of slavery. 

I'm not saying I agree with the ideas in the book, although I do side with them at times. In the real world, white people are not the enemy. In the skin color-conscious world of Beloved, it would be hard to say white people are not the enemy. They have consistently deprived the characters of all the joys of life they can take: children, love for themselves, innocence, quality of life, and, most of all, freedom. Even when slavery has been abolished, the whites still manage to restrict the colored characters of many of their liberties.

Morrison does not so much characterize white people. In fact, the only white people she's mentioned so far are the kind Amy Denver, the Garner family, and the schoolteacher and his nephews. With Amy Denver and Mrs. Garner as the exceptions, she antagonizes the whites in her novel.