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First sighted in Ohio in the late 19th century, The Mark has haunted countless people around the globe. While the ghost itself is usually not seen, distinctive burn marks left on victims’ surroundings is a telltale sign of its presence. While these burn marks often seem abstract and meaningless to local authorities and family members of the victims, it has been documented that these marks often prompt the haunted victims to enter extensive periods of obsession over opportunities that had been stolen from them. For some, these stolen opportunities are developing relationships that had been cut short by interfering forces like slavery or genocide, for others, life goals that had been thwarted by natural disasters or degenerative illnesses. After the initial phase of obsession, the haunted victims are often observed entering a phase of overcompensation, where they fanatically dedicate themselves to doing all that is in their control to prevent a similar situation from recurring. However, since the forces that stole the opportunities in the first place are often elusive, intangible and out of individual control, many victims work themselves into a state of insanity.

Sethe, an ex-slave from Ohio, has been the victim most vocal about her experience being haunted by The Mark. After crosses and circles starting appearing, burnt into her pristine white stairs, her favorite patchwork quilt, and an assortment of other objects, she started having intense periods of obsession, when her mind would not move from the subject of her relationship with her mother. Intensely affected by the way in which slavery snatched away the opportunity to develop a relationship with her mother, Sethe found herself unable to stop obsessing over this lost maternal relationship. At the time of the haunting, Sethe explained to the Cincinnati Tribune that growing up, “I didn’t see [my mother] but a few times out in the fields” (72). Her focus on the fact that her only exposure to her mother was while her mother was “out in the fields,” being forced to work as a slave, emphasizes the way in which their relationship was constrained by slavery and the adverse life circumstances that slavery forced her mother –and her– into. Sethe’s distress over her lack of a maternal relationship is further emphasized by her noting that “she never fixed my hair or nothing” (72). This inability to develop this maternal relationship through typical bonding activities caused her to go into overdrive when it came to her own children, according to her daughter, Denver. Excited by the fact that “there wasn’t nobody in the world I couldn’t love if I wanted to,” because she was free from slavery, Sethe focused so much time and energy into “loving” and cultivating a relationship with her daughters that it even interfered with her job (191). Her daughter Denver explained that Sethe gave her other daughter, Beloved, “anything she wanted” (283). In an effort to prove her love to her daughters beyond any shadow of a doubt, Sethe subsumed all other aspects of her life including her health, community and financial wellbeing. This outwardly obsessive behavior mirrored her internal obsession as she struggled with questioning whether her mother had attempted to run away without her even though “she was my ma’am and nobody’s ma’am would run off and leave her daughter, would she?” (240). Reporters were unable to obtain any testimonies from neighbors and noted that the family seemed unusually isolated.

As is shown in Sethe’s case, being haunted by The Mark can be especially damaging to victims of trauma, who have often worked hard to suppress or hide from their pasts of extreme violence or deprivation. For trauma victims that haven’t had the privilege to process and come to terms with their pasts with psychologists who specialize in trauma, the Mark can be too much to handle.