Theme Of Freedom In Beloved By Toni Morrison

She understands how slavery can destroy or “dirty” a person to the point where “you forgot who you were and couldn’t think it up.” This is the justification for trying to kill her children so they would never have to experience what it is like to have your identity stripped from you. Even though “she and others lived through and got over it”, her personality/identity was so damaged that she didn’t want her kids to live through slavery. However, Sethe failed to apply this to herself. She overlooked the fact that her own corruption led to her struggles with motherhood. In never learning how to properly mother a child, Sethe made the rash decision of killing them to free them from the horrors of slavery. In the passage above, Morrison uses the symbol of dirt to portray how Sethe’s own corruption affected her children and hindered their freedom. In trying to save her children from the “dirt”, Sethe dirtied her children anyway because slavery is so powerful that if it affects one, it affects all. The dirt of slavery never left Sethe and made it hard for her to discover herself and find her own freedom. Again, Morrison establishes the difference between being free and freeing oneself. Because she has been so corrupted by slavery, neither Sethe nor her children can be truly

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 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.

Even after she acknowledges Beloved's identity, Sethe shows herself to be still enslaved by the past, because she quickly succumbs to Beloved's demands and allows herself to be consumed by Beloved. Only when Sethe learns to confront the past head-on, to assert herself in its presence, can she extricate herself from its oppressive power and begin

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.

Slavery was abolished in 1865, freeing all enslaved African Americans in the United States. But even after it was abolished slavery left a lasting Toni Morrison’s Beloved protests the injustices and trauma of being a slave and how it persists even after freedom is attained. Through the characters Sethe and Paul D, Toni portrays the pain and terrible memories they carry with them from their time of being enslaved. In the novel Beloved Morrison is protesting slavery and the lasting trauma it leaves on the character’s lives after freedom through flashbacks, the ghost who haunts house 124, and the character’s individual fears.

The atrocities of slavery know no bounds. Its devices leave lives ruined families pulled apart and countless people dead. Yet many looked away or accepted it as a necessary part of society, even claiming it was beneficial to all. The only way this logic works is if the slaves are seen as less than human, people who cannot be trusted to take care of themselves. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved the consequences of a lifetime of slavery are examined. Paul D and seethe, two former slaves have experienced the worst slavery has to offer. Under their original master, Mr. Garner the slaves were treated like humans. They were encouraged to think for themselves and make their own decisions. However, upon the death of Mr. Garner all of that changes. Under

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.

Beloved is seen as the resemblance of Sethe’s dead baby. Beloved is portrayed as a teenage girl, however she is different from other black teenager, “…and younger than her clothes suggested – good lace at the throat, and a rich woman’s hat. Her skin was flawless except for three vertical scratches on her forehead so fine and thin they seemed at first like hair, baby hair before it bloomed and roped into the masses of black yarn under her hat.” (Morrison 62). Beloved unexpectedly came to 124, the house where Sethe, Denver, and Paul D lived. However, Sethe became attracted to her, “Sethe was deeply touched by her sweet name; the remembrance of glittering headstone made her feel especially kindly toward her. Denver, however, was shaking. She looked at this sleepy beauty and wanted more.” (Morrison 63) represent Sethe’s fascination towards Beloved, because she made Sethe recall her dead baby, which also has the word Beloved engraved in the gravestone. The name Beloved itself makes Sethe sentimental from

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

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

In Toni Morrison novel Beloved, she wrote, “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” Which means that being free and claiming that freedom are two different things because when being freed they can still feel trapped. On the other hand, claiming that freedom means that they do not feel trapped and they actually found a way to claim their own freedom. The novel Beloved is about a former slave name Sethe and her past of being enslaved still haunts her even to the present day. However, it is not just only her who past haunts her, it is also the people who been freed from slavery. Even though slavery was abolished and they were freed, they did not know how to live comfortably and freely. Although

Morrison and Twain each present freed slave mothers as self-sacrificing. Each woman 's traumatic experiences as slaves create a deep fear of her children 's enslavement. In Morrison 's Beloved, Sethe is so distressed by her past; she murders her child to save her from slavery. Morrison uses Sethe 's drastic sacrifice to comment on slavery 's psychological effects. Meanwhile, Twain 's Pudd 'n Head Wilson portrays Roxy as a sacrificial mother to create sympathy for black people. From a cultural perspective, Roxy counters all of the propaganda about black people in the nineteenth century. Roxy plans to kill her son and herself, but figures out a different way to save her son from slavery. Both characters are selfless mothers, but the authors use this sacrificial behavior to prove different points about slavery. Morrison uses her characters selflessness to show the distress slavery can cause, while Twain capitalizes on the sympathy it creates to humanize black people in the public 's view.

 When Sethe finally arrives at 124 Bluestone Road, she is greeted with her loving mother-in-law, Jenny Whitlow, known to her as Baby Suggs.  A second healing takes place when Baby Suggs tends to her mutilated body.  “She led Sethe to the keeping room and bathed her in sections, starting with her face…Sethe dozed and woke to the washing of her hands and arms…When Sethe’s legs were done, Baby looked at her feet and wiped them lightly.  She cleaned between Sethe’s legs…”(Morrison, 93).  The methodical washing of Sethe’s body emphasizes the sympathy and love that fills Baby Suggs’ heart.  Putting her trust in Baby Suggs for the relief of physical and emotional torment, is the only way Sethe is able to relieve herself of her haunted past and suffering body.  Baby Suggs knows as well as Sethe, the haunting miseries of black men and women who have been brought low by slavery, yet she urges her daughter-in-law to keep going and be strong.

Knowing the value of this rarity, Sethe was extremely attached to her children, and refused to lose them, lest she lose herself.  The link between mother and child, then, is an important underlying theme throughout Beloved, and one with which Sethe became obsessed.