Beloved, By Toni Morrison

The central characters in Beloved by Toni Morrison have been enslaved or born into families of former slaves. They have had nothing of their own, and have been denied all forms of freedom. As slaves they had no right to choose their own day to day activities; they were not able to speak their minds; and they were not able to have a say in their own destiny. Sethe, her mother, the Sweet Home men, and the community around 124 in Beloved all faced a version of slavery in which they were deprived of the basic human rights to express themselves and communicate. Song and dance often provide the only means of communication and self expression among the slaves and in some cases former slaves. Sethe makes many of her familial connections through song and dance, such as remembering her
Sethe’s mother, Ma’am, worked on a plantation and Sethe would always see her as “one among many backs turned away from her, stooping in a watery field” (37). Sethe was not able to single out her mother from a crowd of slaves who were all doing the same work. “Oh but when they sang. And oh but when they danced” (37) Sethe knew that “one of the ma’ams… was certainly her own” (37). Sethe was able to recognize this song and dance and she knew that her mother was a part of this small amount of a livelier time in the lives of slaves. When Sethe thinks about the years before Sweet Home “she remember[s] only song and dance” (37). She does “not even [remember] her own mother” (37). Sethe is not able to remember her mother, but instead she remembers her mother dancing during a happier moment. Part of what makes this memory so special to Sethe is that the slaves are using this song and dance as a form of resistance to slavery. When they danced they “became something other” (37), meaning, when they danced they became something other than slaves. As slaves they were stripped of many freedoms that they should have had, such as the freedom