Sethe Character

In Sethe’s perspective when it came to whether or not she should kill her kids or have herself and her children all go back to Sweet Home, she rather kill them before they have the chance to become slaves based off of the past experiences she had as a slave. In Sethe’s view, “I told Mrs. Garner on em. She had that lump and couldn’t speak but her eyes rolled out tears. Them boys found out I told on em. Schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it made a tree. It grows there still” (17). This means that not only was Sethe violated by boys but she was also whipped hard enough on her back to cause scarring that resembles a tree. In the novel the word “tree” symbolizes her unpleasant past. For example the tree-shaped scar on her back and back at Sweet Home there would be dead slaves hanging on trees. Another example of Sethe’s past experiences was her getting violated being a sex slave. According to Sethe, “After I left you, those boys came in there and took my milk. That’s what they came in there for.” Morrison’s point is that slaves are not seen as human. This is important because slaves were seen as property like animals. For instance, the boys take Sethe’s breastfeeding milk as if she were a cow. In Sethe’s words, “Where I was before I came here, that place is real. It’s never going away. Even if the whole farm--every tree and grass blade of it dies. The picture is still there and what's

“It was some time before he could put Alfred, Georgia, Sixo, Schoolteacher, Halle, his brothers, Sethe, minister, the taste of iron, the sight of butter, the smell of hickory, notebook paper, one by one, into the tobacco tin lodged in his chest. By the time he got to 124 nothing in this world could pry it open.” (Morrison 133) The tobacco tin represents privacy and his past. Paul D was locking up his past in this tin can. The tin can isn’t even something Paul D can open up himself. In this next quote, Paul D and Sethe were discussing the past but they decide not to go in too deep into their memories. “Saying more might push them both to a place they couldn't get back from. He would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. It's lid rusted shut. He would not pry it loose now in front of this sweet sturdy woman, for if she got a whiff of the contents it would shame him. And it would hurt her to know that there was no red heart as bright as Mister’s comb beating in him." (Morrison 86). This quote shows that both Sethe and Paul D were unwilling to dwell on the past too much due to their fear of reliving it. Paul D attempts to force his memories into that tobacco tin but they always found a way to leak back out once again. Next it is important to discuss how Emily holding onto her father represents the theme.

Yet another example of Sethe’s dependence on her own strength is the account of Sethe’s own escape from “the grips of slavery in order to protect her children from what Morrison describes as School teacher’s brutal empire”.(196) Sethe is married by fourteen and is a mother by fifteen; but she is older and pregnant with her last child before she has to become superior protector of her children. Twenty-eight days after being a free woman, Sethe is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice as a mother. Although she is jailed as a murderer, her attempt to kill her four children is done so that her children would never know the life of a slave, so they would never be acquainted with “what Baby Suggs died of, what Ella knew, what Stamp saw and what

Sethe divulged to Paul D the catastrophic events that caused her to run away from Sweet Home, and then she surrendered her sons and daughter to a woman in a wagon because she was worried about the family’s future under the Schoolteacher’s reign. Her description of the assault was straight forward. She told Paul D and very succinctly the roughness and cruelty of those white people especially the two white boys who beat her while she was pregnant with Denver injuring her so badly that her back skin had been dead for years. She refers to the situation as

When Sethe first meets Beloved, she welcomes her with a suspiciously large magnitude. Furthermore, it is clear that Sethe never revealed her past experiences to Denver, yet the moment Beloved asks about her lost earrings, it was “the first time she had heard anything about her(Sethe’s) mother’s mother”(61). This proves that Beloved, and not anyone else, is pulling Sethe to the past, by making her recollect of her days as a slave. In addition,“it is clear why she holds on to you(Sethe), but I just can’t see why you holding on to her,” Paul mentioned(67). This shows how Paul realizes that Sethe has taken in Beloved without much reasoning, and when Beloved hums a song that Sethe happened to make up, Sethe fully but blindly embraces Beloved as family. In fact, she “had gone to bed smiling,” anxious to “unravel the proof for the conclusion she had already leapt to”(181). This shows how consumed by Beloved she is.

20-27.What do Paul D and Sethe remember about Sweet Home? Why do you think Morrison gives us the information bit by little bit?

Sethe understands that her history, filled with the pain of slavery, grief over losing her children, and guilt over Beloved's death, and tries to hide from all the anguish. However, she admits that the past seems to "always be there waiting," thereby emphasizing the idea that past horrors of life continue to haunt forever. It appears as though the power of her experience in slavery influences her so greatly that the memory triggers great pain, causing the horrifying incidents to "happen again." Even though Sethe understands that she cannot ever fully escape her history as it will come back to trouble her, she still tries to avoid them and thus attempts to shield her daughter from the horrors of history: "As for Denver, the job Sethe had of keeping her from the past that was still waiting for her was all that mattered" (45). It seems as though Sethe tries to deny the fact that history does not simply disappear. She still tries to protect Denver "from the past" even though history "waits," prepared to cause trouble and inflict the pain Sethe tries to repress. It appears as though Sethe continuously tries to fight against her memories and ignore her past in part one. For example, after she wakes, she begins "Working dough. Working, working dough. Nothing better than that to start the day's

Sethe, a 13-year-old child of unnamed slave parents, arrives at Sweet Home, an idyllic plantation in Kentucky operated by Garner, an unusually humane master, and his wife, Lillian. Within a year, Sethe selects Halle Suggs to be her mate and, by the time she is 18, bears him three children. After Garner dies, his wife turns control of the plantation over to her brother-in-law, the schoolteacher, who proves to be a brutal overseer. Schoolteacher's cruelty drives the Sweet Home slave men Paul D, Halle, Paul A, and Sixo to plot their escape. In August, fearful that her sons will be sold, a very pregnant Sethe packs her children Howard, Buglar, and Beloved in a wagon and sends them to safety with their grandmother in Cincinnati. Schoolteacher discovers what she has

Sethe lives in the shadow of her act of infanticide throughout the entire length of the book. This is because its legacy pervades itself throughout the entire novel, showing events leading up, and ways the future has been affected. The novel begins as such: “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. (Page 1)” This baby refers to Beloved, who became a ghostly presence in Sethe’s house and continuously terrorizes the house

The theme of isolation as in many of the other pieces of literature that we have read this year can been seen in this novel Beloved. The theme can be seen in the isolation of Sethe and her inner self. It can also be seen with Denver and her separation from society because of the children at school. There is also the detachment of Sethe’s family from the rest of the world because of her past and what people think of the house and

In Tony Morrison’s Beloved, Sethe journeys from Sweet Home in Kentucky to house 124 in Ohio. Sethe strives to leave her life of slavery behind as she seeks refuge at Baby Sugg’s house. The physical journey represents Sethe’s abundance of determination and motherly love. Sethe becomes determined to abandon her life as a slave and make the arduous trip to find freedom after she can no longer endure the animal-like treatment she receives at Sweet Home.

Through character development, the story also portrays the theme of escaping the past. Sethe’s actions are influenced heavily by her dead child, Beloved. When the “human” form of Beloved arrives while sleeping

Although there are many characters in the novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison, she portrays the character’s personality in many literary devices. Sethe is a one of the main characters Morrison portrays the most. Morrison uses metaphor and symbolism and imagery to describe Sethe’s strength as someone who suffered through slavery shaping her for who she is now. Although the novel takes place after slavery, Morrison does insert “flashbacks” describing the moments that changes her life.

In the novel, Beloved by Toni Morrison, Sethe leaves her home but it never left her. Sethe’s home still plays a significant and dramatic part in her life. Her home had such an impact on her causing severe trauma, caused by physical abuse inflicted on her by schoolteacher at sweet home. Her traumatic home leaves her with physical and mental scars that cause her to commit infanticide and run towards Mr.Bodwin with an ice pick. Sethe’s trauma and mental scarring goes to show that “you can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you”.

Within the passage Toni Morrison sets Paul D proving his love to Sethe. When he talk about the tobacco tin, he talks about the memories that he had in Sweet Home. All those memories that he kept inside where his heart would be because it is something that would be unforgettable. Morrison uses symbolism to show how closed his heart is and how he shuts the memories of sweet home, but he still has them close to his heart. Because of that tin, it was hard for him to tell Sethe about Halle. How he left her while the white men were hurting Sethe. That’s when Sethe gets mad and wondered why her own husband didn’t do anything to intervene.