The Theme Of Life In Toni Morrison's Beloved

Improved Essays
Toni Morrison 's "Beloved," is a story of trying to move forward, only to end up being haunted by the past. We learn the story of an ex slave named Sethe. The story, set in Ohio in 1873, tells of Sethes escape from slavery, and the fateful day her life took a drastic turn. To a stranger, from the outside looking in, Sethes life is as normal as it could be under the circumstances of being a runaway slave. Morrison tells of Sethe 's struggle of being enslaved not only in body, but in mind and spirit also. A woman with the need and desire to protect her children. After being found by school teacher, the slave owner she ran away from, rather than returning to "Sweet Home" and a life of slavery for her children and herself, Sethe …show more content…
She saw her own mother hanging there dead. She ended up losing her husband and her sons. She killed her own daughter as a way to save her. She ended up alone with just her daughter Denver and the ghost of her dead baby. The fact that even after living with Beloved 's ghost for eighteen years she did not recognize her when she came is not surprising. as she had suppressed the memories of that fateful day. She had neither admitted, or even thought what she had done was wrong, nor had she ever apologized for it. Sethe had convinced herself that killing Beloved was the right thing to do. "Beloved, she my daughter. She mine.... She had to be safe and I put her where she would be. But my love was tough and she back now. I knew she would be.... I won’t never let her go.(Sethe. 236). She knew that Beloved was angry but that she was ok. In the article, "Invisible Metamorphosis," by Régine-Mihal Friedman, he states, "Ultimately, in the absence of confession and acknowledgment of the offense, the healing properties have not found its way towards the rehabilitation of his still injured victim." Sethe was a victim, yes. She was a victim of many things; slavery, rape, circumstance and more. Beloved was a victim also; her mother 's victim. If Beloved was angry and jealous, she had a right to be. She was murdered after …show more content…
Sethe believes that it was a selfless act of love and protection. She told her friend Paul D., “I took and put my babies where they’d be safe.” He tells her that her love is “too thick.” Sethe asks what else she could have done, and Paul D responds, “You got two feet, Sethe, not four,” indicating that she is a human, not an animal. In the article "Infanticide as Slave Resistance: Evidence from Barbados, Jamaica, and Saint-Domingue," J.M. Allain writes, " While abolitionists tended to portray slave mothers as wholly selfless, doting, and maternal, pro-slavery writers described slave mothers as negligent and cruel." Abolitionists tend to believe that a mother would only kill her child to protect it from living a horrible, painful, degrading life slaving for the white man. Pro slavery writers believe that slave mothers killed their babies so that the white owners would not have the benefit of having them. It was not always just to protect their child from the painful, morally degrading life as a slave, but also it was a snub to the slave

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    She did not look at them; she simply swung the baby toward the wall planks, missed and tried to connect a second time, when out of nowhere—in the ticking time the men spent staring at what there was to stare at—the old nigger boy, still mewing, ran through the door behind them and snatched the baby from the arch of its mother 's swing" (Morrison 141). Sethe chose to take an extreme action to secure the safety of her children rather than have them taken back to Sweet Home to live, work, and die as slaves. She knows how dehumanizing slavery can, from being compared to an animal to having her breast milk stolen. The pain and suffering that consumes her eventually takes shape as Beloved. Beloved is seemingly back from the dead, taking her place in Sethe 's life as if she was never killed.…

    • 1770 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A disturbing scene in Beloved contains many parallels to modern society, specifically the way in which black people are treated in America. When Sethe finally could not bear the cruelty of slavery any more, she fled to the North in hope for a better life for her and her children. Unfortunately, because she could produce many healthy children, she was viewed as a valuable asset to her owner. The schoolteacher believed she was an asset too valuable to simply forget about. When the schoolteacher found where Sethe had fled, Sethe had to make a crucial decision.…

    • 998 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    This disconnection causes Sethe to alienate herself from the community, thus alienating her daughter Denver as well: Not anybody ran down to say some new white folks with the Look just rode in. The Look every Negro learned to recognize along with his ma’am’s tit. Nobody warned them, and … it wasn’t the exhaustion from a long day’s gorging that dulled them, but some other thing….like meanness….that let them stand aside, or not pay attention, or tell themselves somebody else was probably bearing the news already to the house of Bluestone Road where a pretty little slave girl had recognized a hat, and split the woodshed to kill her children (157) This failure of the community leads to Sethe murdering Beloved (Sethe’s crawling already baby). After she commits infanticide in order to spare her child from the chokehold of slavery, the community rejects Sethe.…

    • 1773 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Sethe has become a very independent after the death of her husband Halle. Sethe did not want her children to be hurt from all the the cruel white people. Sethe has came to a decision that she needed kill her children. Everyone says how can a mother do that to her own children but I see where sethe is coming from, she justs wants the best for her children.…

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Desire, often defined as a sense of longing or an emotional craving, is at its core, a driving force in each of our lives. No one lives without desire. It is such an innate facet of our humanity that there are literally religions based around the concept of living without desire. The concept itself has many connotations, ranging from simple desires like food and human interaction, to the extreme, being greed. It has been proposed that desire is a form of slavery each and every one of us is a victim to.…

    • 1094 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Beloved Hero's Journey

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison displays Beloved’s hero journey to exhibit to the readers how Beloved represented slavery. Toni Morrison uses the hero’s journey in the novel while using Beloved to represent the idea of slavery. Morrison introduces the ordinary world as being Sweet Home. Sweet Home was where Beloved was born and where Sethe was enslaved. Morrison continues the cycle with them going to 124 where they were free.…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The scar under Beloved’s chin, the smell of milk, and the childlike nature, all remind Sethe of the past; and for others it could be the cries of pain, scars or anything else. The point here is that Beloved is the sixty million and more who were lost and if brought back could bring along pain from past events. Not from my mind but what Toni Morrison wrote "Anything dead coming back to life hurts. "(Morrison 35), this is true for all of Beloved and the sixty million and more.…

    • 1630 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Sethe’s fanatic love towards her children separate her from other slave mothers; this love is so powerful, it drives Sethe to kill her other baby daughter ‘Beloved’ while escaping her slave owner. Paul D is aware of the unconditional love that Sethe has for her children, however, unlike Sethe, Paul D makes sure that he is not overly attached to one thing, he thinks “For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous... The best thing, he [Paul D] knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke it’s back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you’d have a little love left over for the next one” (Morrison 54). Throughout the novel, the reader learn of Paul D’s past and his lack of attachments to sides in the Civil War, due to his experiences as a slave. Yet, Toni Morrison is able to juxtapose Paul D’s lack of attachments to further emphasize Sethe’s over attachments to others, especially those who had an impact on her past.…

    • 1888 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison, a former slave, Sethe is pushed to her limits and she uncovers the true identity of being a mother. Sethe decides on killing one of her daughter's, Beloved, to show a sign of protection and not wanting her child to live in a world where slavery occurs. Beloved’s reappearance affects Denver, Sethe, and Paul D both in a positive and negative way. Denver had always known she had a sister and she wanted to protect her from any harm coming her way. Sethe on the other hand, choose to apologize and acknowledge that Beloved was back, but it made her realize the true meaning of motherhood and self-acceptance.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As a former slave and a mother, it is understandable for her to prevent her child to be enslaved because when we look at what she has gone through. On the other hand, thinking about the difference between the child unalienable rights, to live and to be free, made killing the child not just, because, and even though she was doing it out of love, to distinguish which one should prevail over the other should not be up to only Sethe. The baby should have had her say in such decision. With that said, the complexity of such act made it difficult to see it through one lens of ethical…

    • 1154 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Also, even in her death, Beloved suffers from other people, and her own feelings and fears. As she stands in the rain, people around her “[were] taken [she] [is] not taken [she] [is] falling like the rain is [she] [watches] him eat inside [she] [is] crouching to keep from falling with the rain [she] [is] going to be in pieces he hurts where [she] sleep he puts his finger there [she] [drops] the food and break into pieces she took my face away.” (Morrison 22.7) This could mean that everyone around Beloved that has died, are being chosen to fully die and go to heaven or hell. Beloved, however, does not get chosen and she is forced to stay there and watch as everyone else is picked.…

    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    PTSD In Beloved

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Who is Beloved? Is she a Ghost or is she a real human? What is her strong connection to Sethe, Denver, And Paul D? To me Beloved is lost Ghost or Spirit that is the culmination of all the pain and suffering that this family has had to endure. She is a spirit that is not at peace, and represents the inner struggle that they must face.…

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    While Beloved is gaining weight Sethe is rapidly losing it. Sethe’s inability to stand up and do something for herself and rather doing everything for Beloved represent how Sethe is unable to face the struggles slavery have caused. Sethe’s memories and scars are consuming her, and Beloved is a human representation of it. Third, Beloved’s desire to engage sexually with Paul D show the temptations Paul D has faced and will continue to face since escaping slavery. Paul D is known to have had several children whom he doesn’t know, all with different women.…

    • 1309 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Beloved develops to be a reminder to Sethe, and everyone around her, that evading…

    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays