Decisions Revealed In Toni Morrison's Beloved

In the book Sethe states, "When I put that headstone up I wanted to lay in there with you, put your head on my shoulder and keep you warm, and I would have if Buglar and Howard and Denver didn't need me, because my mind was homeless then." (241) I can't even begin to imagine the tremendous amount of pain she felt when murdering her first child. As the story goes on Sethe is blinded by love and grants Beloved's every desire. Beloved would consume every resource they had to the max and she wouldn't care if her mother or sister ate, "But the pain was unbearable when they ran low on food, and Denver watched her mother go without-pick-eating around the edges of the table and stove: the hominy that stuck on the bottom; the crusts and rinds and peelings of things." (285) Sethe was practically eating the little bit of leftovers Beloved left behind whole Denver starved. Denver has grown up to be an only child ever since Howard & Buglar ran away. So when she met Beloved she automatically got attached and poured all her love into her until she decided she had enough. One day she decided to get out of the house and seek for

Paul D, a fellow ex-member of Sweet Home, the same place Sethe was stationed in during her slavery years, is a character who was a victim of cruelty done by a society and a communtiy and was forced to act cruely himself. Schoolteacher, the man who represents slavery, hurts Paul D by making him realize that he has less worth than a rooster named Mister. This makes Paul D question how much exactly he is worth, and where he belongs as can be seen as he travels the states based on the advice of a Cherokee member. Paul D eventualy finds that place in 124, with Sethe. One of the most obvious scenes of Paul D committing a cruel deed is when he

Stamp Paid, a former slave who ferries Sethe and Denver across the Ohio River, tried to take Beloved’s corpse from the mother’s clinging hands and give Denver to her. A mother killing her own child is an act that subverts the natural order of the world. A mother is expected to create life, not destroy it, but with Sethe’s case, she was insane and out of control at that specific moment when she imagined that her child might face the same assault in future. Thus, she prefers to put an end to this situation. On the other hand, we notice that she was very anxious about the feeling of Beloved, her murdered child. She stated, “Do you forgive me? Will you stay? You safe here now”

Seethe who could havebeen described as part animal by Schoolteacher, turns into an animal when he arrives at her house intending to invoking the Fugitive Slave Law to take her and her children back into slavery. Grabbing he her children when she saw Schoolteacher coming, Sethe grabs a handsaw to cut off Beloved head and attempting to kill the boys by smashing her heads on the wall.

She believes that her daughter may encounter a worse fate than death if she lives. She decided that she would not let her daughter be subjected to what she had endured as a slave at Sweet Home. She takes matters into her own hands and carries out a barbaric act of slitting her daughter's throat. "It ain't my job to know what's worse. It's my job to know what is and to keep them away from what I know is terrible. I did that" (194). This behavior could be described as animalistic or barbaric to people on the outside, but to Sethe this was her only way of saving her child from the awful fate of slavery. To Sethe this was the only way for her to be a mother, because she would not be able to stand the thought of her daughter sharing the same miserable fate as

As Sethe's demise and Beloved's mischief become overwhelming, Denver assumes the responsibility to assure the survival of her family. Due to Beloved's presence, Sethe loses her job and soon all of her savings is spent. There is no food, however, Beloved's demands do not cease. Sethe begins to wither away from frustration and a wounded conscience and Denver becomes "listless and sleepy with hunger" (242). Denver realizes that, "she would have to leave the yard; stop off the edge of the world, leave the two behind and go ask somebody for help" (243). Denver must face her terror of a mundane society to keep her sister and mother from starvation.

Sethe is not simply attempting to kill her children just for the sake of doing it; she sees no other option for the betterment of their lives. Sethe is attempting to take the lives of her children out of pure love and the opportunity to not drag them through a life of suffering.

At the climax of her book Beloved, Toni Morrison uses strong imagery to examine the mind of a woman who is thinking of killing her own children. She writes,

He becomes emasculated when he fails to have a successful physical relationship with Sethe. In fact, he shows his dependence on Sethe even more by asking her for a child. Sethe looks back and remembers, “Tucked into the well of his arm, Sethe recalled Paul D’s face in the street when he asked her to have a baby for him” (155).” Paul D asking for a baby from Sethe contributes to his emasculation as well as his sexual relations with Beloved. Paul D being taken advantage of shows that Beloved is a more powerful character than Paul D. All things considered, Paul D exposes his emotions which makes him feel weak. In the year paul escapes, 124 divides Sethe and her children. Sethe is the sole provider for the house. Her masculine qualities fill the void of a male figure. Similarly, when Sethe is in need of sustenance, Denver steps in to become a masculine figure by asking the townspeople for

Does she do this because she is selfish or because it need not be justified? Sethe’s love is clearly displayed by sparing her daughter from a horrific life; yet, Sethe refuses to acknowledge that her show of compassion is also murder.

It is within human nature to fear that which we do not understand. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, this idea is explored through the lens of racial discrimination. In this passage, Morrison uses animal imagery as a means to criticize the whites’ dehumanization and subsequent fear of the blacks. With a focus on this inherent, primal fear, this section stresses the novel’s theme of the “Other” and reinforces the existence of racial prejudice. While this piece of the narrative emphasizes that this “othering” strips the blacks of human identity, it also brings to the forefront the idea that through this cruel evaluation of the blacks, the whites only degrade themselves. This reinforces the novel’s idea that anywhere slavery exists, each individual suffers a loss of compassion and humanity.

These disturbing pasts rear their ugly heads when in her panic at the past catching up with her, Sethe kills her eldest child and attempts to do the same with the other three. She is unable to escape the past she ran from through mere physical distance. “‘I stopped him,’ she said, staring at the place where the fence used to be, ‘I took my babies and put them where they’d be safe’” (Morrison 164). Sethe is talking about murdering her children to put them beyond the reach of slavery. As Paul D puts it a few lines later, “This here Sethe talked about safety with a handsaw” (Morrison 164). Sethe describes a feeling of “hummingbirds” pecking at her head and then a calm understanding of what to do to put her children forever out of reach of the horrors of her dark past, which she still carries around in her head (Morrison 163, 262). These were so awful that the only escape she can imagine is permanent--death. This past haunts her in much the same way Beloved haunts her

Toni Morrison’s classic novel, Beloved, can be briefly summarized as a story with woman who is living in both the horrible aftermath of slavery, as well as her action of murdering her baby child in an attempt to save her from slavery. This story is based on the true story of Margaret Garner, who killed her own child and attempted to kill her other children instead of willfully letting them all return to lives of slavery. While slavery is today clearly classified as wrong by the vast majority of civilized society, as is infanticide, the event that takes place in this book is not as black and white. These instances of a grayer side of morality represent a sort of moral ambiguity that runs rampant throughout the entire novel. The example that is of paramount importance is when Sethe, the protagonist of the story, murders her child in order to save the child from a life of slavery. While at first glance, this act may seem wrong to modern readers, there is actually some evidence that, when thought about, justifies Sethe’s actions.

Her community shuns her, and even a trusted friend like Paul D says “What you did was wrong, Sethe.” (Morrison 194) Margaret Garner was provided with sympathy and support from her enslaved community that recognized her desperation and fear, and outsiders that were inspired by the tragedy of her case. Sethe’s peers share her experiences with slavery, but are less compassionate in their response. She was isolated from her neighbors because she killed Beloved. The act was seen as a sort of betrayal to the community in which no one is left behind, even if they knew her circumstances. The trauma behind the crime was acknowledged, but not understood. Both Margaret Garner and Sethe experience immense stress in the aftermath of their daughter’s death, as people question whether or not what they did was right and challenge why they committed the crime to begin

Sethe’s life has always been difficult because she was born from a slave; therefore, she had to work as a slave from the moment she was mature enough to. The highest peak of inhumanity that she has ever faced was when she had to lose her first daughter, Beloved. Having the