How does the past events in one’s life affect him/herself and his/her actions? In the novel, Beloved by Toni Morrison, the protagonist, Sethe, is forced to undergo a scarring experience from the events that occurred while being enslaved. After being sent to Sweet Home, the feeling of oppression and abuse from the violent and destructive acts affects Sethe to the point where she ends up making an irreversible decision. Morrison uses Sethe’s act in murdering her child and the effects of that event to reveal how one must confront and come to terms with the past in order to be free from its trauma. Having experienced the violence of slavery, Sethe makes a grave choice which resulted in the death of her own child. In overhearing her name being
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His act of recording the slaves’ actions in his notebook and teaching his observations to his students further emphasize the degradation of Sethe’s identity; he uses his own observations based on his own interpretation of them because of the way he treats and views them due to slavery and creates a whole other identity for her. She had to face the brutal acts in order for her owner to feel satisfied that she is being treated as how she is viewed, as an animal. His need to feel and be superior in the time of slavery causes him to use violence to reduce Sethe’s position as a slave into one of an animal so that he has control over her. In doing so, Sethe is left helpless and scarred as she is unable to fight back due to her inability to understand her own identity and role in the society, resulting in her feeling isolated and alienated from everyone else. In telling Paul D what happened to her before she left Sweet Home, she explains how, “those boys came in there and took my milk...Schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it made a tree” (20). When trying to get to her children, whom she loves so much that she would …show more content…
With Beloved’s identity made known to Sethe, it destroys her as ,”Beloved accused her of leaving her behind...And Sethe cried, saying she never did, or meant to-that she had to get them out, away” (284). Sethe has to relive her feelings from the pain of the past as she tries to get Beloved to forgive her. Constantly trying to make up for the past causes Sethe to break apart slowly as tending to Beloved proves to be harder as she is forced to give up more than she is able to keep to survive for herself. Through this, Beloved reveals to be a past that Sethe is forced to come to terms with so that she is able to relive her past and forgive herself in order to piece herself back together again. She accepts Beloved’s presence as her dead daughter and tries to make it up to her by giving all of her attention to Beloved and caring after her as she hoped to be able to provide and do for all of her children. When Mr. Bodwin arrives, Sethe, in mistaking him as Schoolteacher, “flies. The ice pick is not in her hand; it is her hand” (309). Instead of attacking her children this time, she instead changes her target to the person attacking them. In doing so, she realizes and makes up for her mistake before and hopes to do the right thing the right way this time. Through this change, one can see how much Sethe has grown from her experience and how this change will allow
His act of recording the slaves’ actions in his notebook and teaching his observations to his students further emphasize the degradation of Sethe’s identity; he uses his own observations based on his own interpretation of them because of the way he treats and views them due to slavery and creates a whole other identity for her. She had to face the brutal acts in order for her owner to feel satisfied that she is being treated as how she is viewed, as an animal. His need to feel and be superior in the time of slavery causes him to use violence to reduce Sethe’s position as a slave into one of an animal so that he has control over her. In doing so, Sethe is left helpless and scarred as she is unable to fight back due to her inability to understand her own identity and role in the society, resulting in her feeling isolated and alienated from everyone else. In telling Paul D what happened to her before she left Sweet Home, she explains how, “those boys came in there and took my milk...Schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it made a tree” (20). When trying to get to her children, whom she loves so much that she would …show more content…
With Beloved’s identity made known to Sethe, it destroys her as ,”Beloved accused her of leaving her behind...And Sethe cried, saying she never did, or meant to-that she had to get them out, away” (284). Sethe has to relive her feelings from the pain of the past as she tries to get Beloved to forgive her. Constantly trying to make up for the past causes Sethe to break apart slowly as tending to Beloved proves to be harder as she is forced to give up more than she is able to keep to survive for herself. Through this, Beloved reveals to be a past that Sethe is forced to come to terms with so that she is able to relive her past and forgive herself in order to piece herself back together again. She accepts Beloved’s presence as her dead daughter and tries to make it up to her by giving all of her attention to Beloved and caring after her as she hoped to be able to provide and do for all of her children. When Mr. Bodwin arrives, Sethe, in mistaking him as Schoolteacher, “flies. The ice pick is not in her hand; it is her hand” (309). Instead of attacking her children this time, she instead changes her target to the person attacking them. In doing so, she realizes and makes up for her mistake before and hopes to do the right thing the right way this time. Through this change, one can see how much Sethe has grown from her experience and how this change will allow