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The Negative Effects Of Slavery In Beloved, By Toni Morrison

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The story of Beloved by Toni Morrison is an exciting story that explores the negative effects of slavery. This story does this through the main character Sethe. Sethe was a former slave who managed to from a plantation in Kentucky. During her stay in this plantation she experiences not only physical pain, but also mental abuse. Even though she experienced all of this pain during her stay at the “Sweet Home,” she is still able to find happiness in the act of taking care of her children. However, this bond soon faces a challenge when Sethe’s former slave master appears at her home in Cincinnati to return her to the plantation. Because of this, Sethe decides that it would be better for her to attempt to murder her children than to allow them to face the unrelenting pain of slavery. However, she only succeeds in killing one of her children. She kills …show more content…
In her monologue, Beloved thinks about her relationship with Sethe and says that since “there is no one to want me… I want to be the two of us”(Morrison 246). She shows that her one true desire is to be “engulfed” by Sethe in a way that will connect the two of them for eternity, thus allowing Beloved to share Sethe’s life and freedom. Similar to the fact that ex-slaves feel a need to create relationships with others and develop themselves, Beloved longs to to feel this same connection with Sethe (Fowler 1). Unlike Beloved who is stuck in between the state of life and death, Sethe is both free from the confines of death and slavery. Therefore Beloved longs to share in what she considers to be a life devoid of loneliness and abandonment. As a result, Beloved becomes obsessed with Sethe and begins to desire everything that Sethe wants ( Durkin 6). Through this Beloved shows a slave's desire to be connected to a life better than her own, but this over for Sethe unfortunately turns

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