What Is The Relationship Between Veils And Slavery
Black Americans were coerced to only see themselves from a perception of whiteness. W.E.B. Du Bois’s, The Souls of Black Folks, states, “…the American Negro, ‘born with a veil…’ can achieve ‘no true self-consciousness’ but can only ‘see himself through the revelation of the other [i.e. white] world’” ( DuBois 410). Morrison herself notes “…that slaves narrators, ‘shaping the experience to make it palatable’ for white readers, dropped a ‘veil’ over ‘their interior life’” (Rody 97). This “veil” represents obdurate ideals of white oppression exercised before and subsequently after the period of slavery. In Beloved, Morrison posits an erroneous assertion in the relationship between veils and slavery:
And if she thought anything, it was No. No.
Nono. Nonono. Simple. She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them. Over there. Outside this place, where they would be safe. (Morrison 192)
Due to white oppression after slavery, Sethe postulates that the only way to ensconce her children was through “the veil”, which in this case meant, death. Therefore, Sethe liberates herself from living a life of dehumanizing slavery by killing her daughter. However, this act of violence did nothing to remove the veil. The very event that was meant to efface the façade of “free and equal” blacks (infanticide) actually enlaced Sethe’s family into a disintegration of suppressed history where no idiosyncratic self could ever be achieved. It forces Sethe and Denver into a repressive state where past traumas are lost. When Denver discovers the past and the death of her sister, she becomes deaf and dumb, unwilling to face the horrible traumas of the past. Sethe represses any and all memories of the past, only allowing them to resurface with the appearance of Paul D and fully take over with the appearance of Beloved the reincarnate ghost.
And if she thought anything, it was No. No.
Nono. Nonono. Simple. She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them. Over there. Outside this place, where they would be safe. (Morrison 192)
Due to white oppression after slavery, Sethe postulates that the only way to ensconce her children was through “the veil”, which in this case meant, death. Therefore, Sethe liberates herself from living a life of dehumanizing slavery by killing her daughter. However, this act of violence did nothing to remove the veil. The very event that was meant to efface the façade of “free and equal” blacks (infanticide) actually enlaced Sethe’s family into a disintegration of suppressed history where no idiosyncratic self could ever be achieved. It forces Sethe and Denver into a repressive state where past traumas are lost. When Denver discovers the past and the death of her sister, she becomes deaf and dumb, unwilling to face the horrible traumas of the past. Sethe represses any and all memories of the past, only allowing them to resurface with the appearance of Paul D and fully take over with the appearance of Beloved the reincarnate ghost.