Beloved by Toni Morrison deals with the themes of race and gender in significant ways. What the book imparts to the reader is the sense that the only way for someone like Sethe to overcome the series of evils done to her (and the choices she's been forced to make) is to make peace with it in order to heal; to accept what happened, to move forward and become successful as a way of overcoming it. In other words define who you will be instead of allowing it to define you. You choose how something will affect and determine who you will be.
