In Toni Morrison's "Beloved", an African-American
runaway slave named Sethe kills one of her children in order to prevent them
from living life as a slave. Now alone with her daughter Denver, they live in a
house on 124 Bluestone Road in Cincinnati, Ohio. Paul D has come to visit them
regularly, but has drawn out the ghost of Sethe's murdered daughter, who calls
herself Beloved, and seeks revenge on her mother. Sethe, out of guilt, is consumed
into a life of serving Beloved, to the point where her other daughter Denver
seeks help from the local community to drive out the spirit.
Similarly in Scott Cawthon's game trilogy
"Five Nights at Freddy's", a man dressed in a animatronic costume lures
five children from a family pizza diner and murders them. However, the spirits
returns as hosts in the other animatronic suits, and corner their killer into a
dangerously disassembled animatronic suit, which crushes and kills him. Later
in the 90's, a man named Mike Schmidt works the night shift at Freddy Fazbear's
Pizza for very little payment, and is haunted by the five animatronics. With
the help of a phone recording of the previous night watch guard, Mike is able
to outsmart the animatronics and survive five nights in the diner until he is
released from his job.
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| Toni Morrison's "Beloved" (book/movie cover) |
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| Original FNAF Cover by Scott Cawthon |
There are many similarities between the two horror stories.
Beloved is depicted as the reincarnation
of a vengeful baby, and saps away everything Sethe ever wanted-freedom.
Beloved torments and sucks the life out of Sethe to the point where she becomes
frail and on the verge of death, which Denver takes note of. Even Paul D, who
reunites with Sethe after Beloved disappears, is afraid that she will give up
on life and die just like Baby Suggs. In Brendon Priestley’s article “The
return of the dead and the repressed in Toni Morrison’s Beloved” (published
2002), it is said that Beloved is based off the hardships of slavery to “represent a return of the repressed on an
even grander and more resonant level; the rekindling of the memory of a
forgotten and ignored people.” Many theories swirling around the Five Nights at
Freddy’s series also suggest the vengeance of the forgotten murdered children.
In the game itself, the company owner of Freddy’s sweeps the murder incident
under the rug in order to stay in business, ignoring the harsh truth for thirty
years. The murdered children are assumed to seek vengeance on their unknown
killer, and are provoked to attack adults. Nadia Oxford writes in “Murder,
Ghosts, and revenge: The Larger Story Behind the Five Night’s at Freddy’s Games”
(published Feb. 11, 2015) that “when Phone Guy brings up the investigation in
FNAF 2, he also says the animatronics have taken a sudden dislike to adults,
even though they're still fine with kids. If the suits really are possessed by
the spirits of the murdered children, they certainly have reason to take issue
with grown-ups.”
Although though Sethe had some reason as to killing her
daughter, she and the mysterious man both murdered the children out of their
own will. The five spirits and Beloved come back to haunt their killers, even
if it means taking vengeance on the innocent as well. Paul D and the guy on the
phone are similar in the way that they bring a sense of reality to the haunted
estates. Finally, Denver and Mike Schmidt fall victim to their respective ghosts,
and overcome the haunting by searching for a resource of aid, drawing them from
the crossfire and saving their own lives.
References:
"Beloved" by Toni Morrison (1987)
"Five Nights at Freddy's" by Scott Cawthon (2014-2015)
http://www.brentonpriestley.com/writing/beloved.htm
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/murder-ghosts-and-revenge-the-larger-story-behind-the-five-nights-at-freddys-games
