Examples Of Slavery In Beloved

Shad Burnett
ENG 3U0
Mrs.S.Schaffer
November 22, 2014
Slavery in Beloved
History teaches us that there will never be a rainbow without some rain. The American Civil War from 1861 to 1865 signified this. Many African Americans, as well as Caucasians during that era, sacrificed their lives on the battle field for the greater good of their race. The war acts as the defining moment in the abolition of slavery. Toni Morrison, an author eminent for creating novels that highlight African Americans and the struggles they endured, was born into a family in which telling stories of her heritage was integral. As an adult, she wrote the novel ‘Beloved’, which portrays the life of a female slave, pre and post freedom; it incorporates the physical and psychological
trauma slavery inflicted upon women, as well as the drive, fueled by a hatred of slavery and an excessive motherly love, a bitter fate from which the protagonist, Sethe, has to shield her children, and her futile attempts to reside in a parallel world where her repressed memories never come knocking on the her front door. Slavery inflicted a great ordeal of physical and psychological trauma upon its victims, namely Sethe. As the story progresses, Sethe begins to have flashbacks which gives us an idea of the amount of damage she has received. In chapter one, Sethe brings us back to the age of fourteen, when she had been bought like a common item to work at Sweet Home. During that time, she was a virgin, and the only female slave living there. It is here, through imagery, that Morrison begins to explain the trauma slave women had to endure. “And so they were: Paul D Gardner, Paul F Gardner, Paul A Gardner, Halle Suggs and Sixo, the wild man. All in their twenties, minus women, fucking cows, dreaming of rape, thrashing on pallets, rubbing their thighs and waiting for the new girl.” (Morrison 13). The story continues and reintroduces us to more physical and psychological trauma. “ I am full God damn it of two boys with mossy teeth, one sucking on my breast the other holding me down, their book-reading teacher watching and writing it up” (Morrison 83). This was Sethe’s breaking point, during this time, she was pregnant and almost ready to give birth, this was a useless piece of information to her masters whereas they proceeded to so inhumanely beat and rape her. It is through this vivid image that Morrison reveals the incomprehensible trauma produced by sheer cruelty. In a conversation with Paul D on her traumatizing experience (chapter 1), for every question Paul D poses, Sethe responds “And they took my milk” (Morrison 20). The trauma caused by the removal of her milk is something Sethe could live with, whereas the physical and psychological trauma of being raped and beaten finds itself on the other end of the spectrum. As a result, she concentrates on the loss of her milk as her method of repressing the more heart-breaking trauma.
As any woman in her shoe would, Sethe develops an even more intense resentment for slavery.
This, coupled with her excessive love for her children, she risks both hers and their lives for a taste of what was forbidden, freedom; as well as attempt to give them an endless drink of it, regardless the price . In the novel, Morrison seeks to shed light upon the reason for Sethe’s attachment and devotion to her kids. She takes us back in time to Sethe’s early childhood years, “She must have nursed me two or three weeks…Then she went back in rice and I sucked from another woman whose job it was…She didn’t even sleep in the same cabin most nights I remember” (Morrison 72). This mother-child separation explains, how even though knowing her mother, Sethe was basically raised motherless and didn’t want that fate for her kids. As a result, Morrison writes of her risky escape from slavery with her children, where if caught, a punishment of death could have been served. This escape gives us an image of the degree of dedication Sethe has, to keep her children hers, and not the property of her master. We see Sethe’s dedication to shield her children from slavery being tested in chapter 16. School teacher, the sheriff, the slave catcher and a nephew comes to 124 to reclaim their ‘property’, ‘Inside, two boys bled in sawdust and dirt at the feet of a nigger woman holding a blood-soaked child to her chest with one hand and an infant by the heels in the other… she simply swung the baby toward the wall planks, missed and tried to connect a second time’ (Morrison 175). Morrison uses this scene to so explicitly show Sethe’s determination to rid her children of slavery; certainly, death is a fate far better than slavery in her resolve, and so she murders Beloved and attempts to do the same with the others. At this point, one does question her sanity, as well as wonder, was she justified in her actions, was she simply trying to expatriate all affiliations with her past, and where should
one draw the line in a mother protecting her young?
Once again, Morrison victimizes Sethe to display another important idea in her novel, she develops the message that one’s past is embodied in one’s present, and it is incumbent to accept the reality of what is, rather than that of what we wish it to be. Morrison achieves this by constantly reintroducing Sethe to scenes in her past she wishes to be forgotten. The first haunting memory she relives is the murder of her innocent child. “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom,” (Morrison 3). At this point in the novel, Sethe is living with the ghost of her murdered daughter. Unlike the other unwelcomed memories, she is forced to relive this one on a daily basis; it serves as a constant reminder to her that she is a murderer, as well as the events that caused her to commit the act. Morrison then introduces Paul D to the scene, a former slave bearing close relations to Sethe; he serves as a reminder of her sour experiences at Sweet Home. “ He rubbed his cheek on her back and learned that way her sorrow, the roots of it; its wide and intricate branches. Raising his fingers to the hooks of her dress, he knew without seeing them or hearing any sigh that the tears were coming fast” (Morrison 20, 21). Morrison uses imagery here to describe the scar on Sethe’s back. Paul D touching her back and observing it refreshes her memory of the abuse the suffered as a slave, so painful a memory, Sethe is left with no alternative but to break out into tears. Not all of Sethe’s repressed memories are bad; Morrison ironically uses Beloved, the reincarnate of Sethe’s murder daughter to refresh her memory of the good times spent within the bad times.