The Influence Of Sethe

Sethe avoids the subject at all costs because deep down, she knows what she did was wrong, but does not want to have to confront that fact due to the fact that she felt her decision was justified. Without a doubt, each other point-of-view also arrives at the conclusion that Beloved’s murder was wrong, but again, the only difference between each perspective is in reference to whether or not Sethe’s decision is

Sethe kills Beloved because she wants to protect her from a vicious life of slavery. Moreover, Sethe sees killing Beloved as an act of love because she saved Beloved from a strenuous life of enslavement. Sethe thinks that death is better than a life of bondage. Paul D cannot understand her reasoning and leaves her after he finds out the truth. He wonders, “This here Sethe talked about safety with a handsaw. This here new Sethe didn’t know where the world stopped and began” (193). This illustrates a contrast between men and women in the novel since Paul D lacks the maternal instincts that Sethe possesses. Paul D is incapable of being a mother and experiencing that bond, so he cannot quite come to terms with Sethe’s choice. However, one can argue that Sethe’s choice is based on rationality and logic, instead of emotions, which would be the stereotypical response of a woman. Paul D actually experiences this womanly response because he responds emotionally to Sethe’s murder. Therefore, Paul D responds in a traditional feminine way and Sethe responds in a traditional masculine way, which demonstrates a reversal of conventional gender

Sethe defines herself by her children and her love for them throughout Toni Morrison’s Beloved, telling an uneasy Paul D. that choosing between him and Denver “ain’t even a choice.” She dreams of Howard and Buglar, the sons that abandoned her, and how they must've been scared off by the resident ghost of 124. When all of the small hints and pieces add up, it’s revealed in an apologetic chapter that

Destruction of identity, another theme of the novel, relates to the violent scenes. In the second part of Beloved, Sethe takes a stand and expresses her feeling on the violent acts being performed on her. “Nobody will ever get my milk no more except my own children. I never had to give it to nobody else—and the one time I did it was took from me—they held me down and took it. Milk that belonged to my baby” (Morrison 200). Sethe finally comes to terms with her past and vows to never let such a horrendous act happen to her again. Beloved’s reincarnation occurs because Sethe needs to face her dark past head on and free herself from living in shame. It took time, but, Sethe eventually overcomes the odds and begins to live freely and peacefully in her house.

In the closing chapter of the first section of Beloved, Paul D confronts Sethe about her role in the death of her child. Paul D has recently learned of Sethe’s time in prison for killing Beloved, and wishes to hear her perspective. Though Paul D does not learn of Sethe’s innocence, as he desired, he does gain an understanding of her motive for killing her daughter in the passage:

It was the trauma Sethe suffered as a slave and during her attempts to escape slavery that damaged her psyche. Firstly, the damage on Sethe’s unconsciousness due to her traumatic experience as a slave is evident in her and other characters’ physical depiction of herself. Secondly, Sethe’s emotional responses to stressful situations and the remembrance of her past show the dissociative and regressive effect of her traumatic past on her emotions. Sethe suspects that her mother abandoned her when she tried to escape and was killed. Also her mother also worked long hours, thus spending less time with Sethe, causing an emotional distance between herself and Sethe. This is probably what led to Sethe sacrificing her identity as a person and becoming part of her children’s dental. The lack of love from her mother led Sethe to become overly loving to her children in a depremetal way, thus stopping her from connecting to her on an emotional level. The schoolteacher’s views on slaves further dissociated Sethe to her own identity, by influencing the way she feels about herself. Lastly, Sethe’s hazy and fragmented memories, show the result of leading her to have her past life interjected into present moments of life. For example, when Sethe was running across the field to wash the chamomile sap off her legs, she would have

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

At the center of the novel is Sethe, a former slave who escaped to the North before the Civil War. When the novel begins, a dark, terrible secret hangs over Sethe that keeps her apart from the rest of the people in her neighborhood. As the novel progresses, the story of her life emerges in a complex patchwork. Sethe's life for the most part, had been relatively sheltered; at fourteen, she was sold to Sweet Home, where she was a domestic servant rather than a plantation worker. She also had the "amazing luck of six whole years of marriage to that "somebody" son who had fathered every one of her children"(29) - a rarity for a slave in the South.

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

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

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

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.

Sethe says she believes she won't even have to explain her motives for killing her (a love so great she can't let her be taken into a life of slavery). "I don't have to remember nothing," Sethe tells herself on page 183. "I don't even have to explain. She understands it all." Sethe believes the one true way she will find restitution and understanding with Beloved, is by knowing the mark she has left on her daughter. "I only need to know one thing. How bad is the scar?" Sethe feels that by knowing the scar, by touching the "memory of a smile under her chin," she can feel her daughter's pain and connect with her.

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

Sethe always knew that her children were the only good and pure part of who she is and she knew that she had to be the master of her children's fate, there by taking on the motherly and fatherly role. According to Sethe, “What he know about it” (239). This means that Sethe feels that Paul D does not know anything about love or about willingly giving things up. This demonstrates the strengths that Sethe have over Paul D even though she is a woman. Another example of Sethe “In a mans world” is when Baby Suggs tries to compare the difference between a