The Pulitzer Prize winning novel Beloved by Toni Morrison, explores the trials and tribulations of a mother haunted by not only her past, but also by the supernatural and physical embodiment of her deceased child, Beloved. The novel takes place in rural 1873 Cincinnati, and follows the family of former slave, Sethe, who in an attempt to save her children from the horrors of slavery, murdered her infant daughter. Morrison critic, Carolyn Denard states that, when reading this novel, students should “not so much focus on historical background...but rather on the human foreground”. I completely agree with this statement, in which we as students have already learned so much about the horrors of slavery, but not so much on how these former slaves
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The characters portrayed in the novel feel a sense of dehumanization and worthlessness due to the psychological abuse they are put through from infancy. We see this viewpoint of one being less in human in the mind of Paul D. whenever he tells Sethe about the farm rooster Mister. Paul D. states that "Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But I wasn 't allowed to be and stay what I was” (72). Paul D. views his identity as less than a rooster on a farm, which shows that he didn 't view himself as a human being but as something lower and insignificant. This feeling of worthlessness is not a work of fiction, but a genuine human emotion brought on by the abuse of slavery on the human mind. This feeling of “loss of identity” can be seen even today in many adults and adolescents in society. This highlights the fact that Beloved intended to bring light to the human mind and the effects that years of abuse can have on an …show more content…
It is about the human aspect of slavery and how it affected its victims emotionally and psychologically. Slavery had a mostly negative effect on the human psyche as seen in the scenes when Paul D. diminishes his self-worth to less than a rooster, and in the scene when Sethe, without a doubt, murders her children to save them from slavery. But, it also had a somewhat positive effect, in that it taught those former slaves to use their years of abuse to grow into stronger, better people as seen in the scene in which Sethe first rejects her past but then accepts it and grows from
The characters portrayed in the novel feel a sense of dehumanization and worthlessness due to the psychological abuse they are put through from infancy. We see this viewpoint of one being less in human in the mind of Paul D. whenever he tells Sethe about the farm rooster Mister. Paul D. states that "Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But I wasn 't allowed to be and stay what I was” (72). Paul D. views his identity as less than a rooster on a farm, which shows that he didn 't view himself as a human being but as something lower and insignificant. This feeling of worthlessness is not a work of fiction, but a genuine human emotion brought on by the abuse of slavery on the human mind. This feeling of “loss of identity” can be seen even today in many adults and adolescents in society. This highlights the fact that Beloved intended to bring light to the human mind and the effects that years of abuse can have on an …show more content…
It is about the human aspect of slavery and how it affected its victims emotionally and psychologically. Slavery had a mostly negative effect on the human psyche as seen in the scenes when Paul D. diminishes his self-worth to less than a rooster, and in the scene when Sethe, without a doubt, murders her children to save them from slavery. But, it also had a somewhat positive effect, in that it taught those former slaves to use their years of abuse to grow into stronger, better people as seen in the scene in which Sethe first rejects her past but then accepts it and grows from