Close Reading Of Sethe Beloved

Although slavery in the United States no longer exists in the twenty first century, American society and African American culture remain embedded by the grievances and the devastation that resulted from slavery. Toni Morrison, a black feminist writer, published Beloved in 1987 to fictionally depict fragmented slave families through her intricate plot and rich characters. Sethe, a fugitive slave, who lives in the free state of Ohio, is relentlessly plagued by her experiences as a slave. Each character’s account has authentic stories of loss and oppression, but Sethe’s struggle with the past is particularly violent and traumatic. The image of breast milk exemplifies how Sethe’s past has been restrained by slavery throughout each stage of her

life.
Sethe’s connection to milk began with her lack of nourishment from her own mother.

Sethe’s mother, her ma’am, was not a stable figure in Sethe’s early development, because her mother was forced to work on the plantation. Under those circumstances, Sethe didn’t identify or interact her with ma’am because more broadly, slavery as an institution separated families. In her attempts to recall her childhood, Sethe refers to her mother as “the one among many backs turned away from her”(16) working in the fields. This brusque mention of a mother seems disrespectful to outsiders, but in the context of slave life, it is instead painful and saddening. However, Sethe also fails to remember relevant details of her upbringing, naming the plantation “that place where she was born”(17). For further emphasis, Sethe was only nursed by her ma’am for “two or three weeks”(36) and then, in her own words, “sucked from another woman whose job it was” (36). Sethe and her mother were separated because they were viewed as commodities. Instead of her ma’am, “Nan was the one [Sethe] knew best”(36), and Nan acted as the caretaker for Sethe and both the slave and white children. But even Nan, a slave wet nurse, did not provide proper nourishment for Sethe because the white slave owner’s children were fed first(114). Young Sethe never had enough. Breast milk represents the physical deprivation that Sethe, and slave children as a collective group, suffer from. This lack of sustenance and family connection in Sethe’s past as a daughter, as illustrated with the image of milk, pushes Sethe to seek extreme connection with her own

children.
After the larger plantation, 13-year old Sethe was brought to Sweet Home(6), a relatively better slave farm. After a year of the “sweet home men” yearning for Sethe to choose a sexual partner, she decided she wanted to marry Halle(6). The Garners, who were the Sweet Home men and Sethe’s slave owners, “allowed” Sethe and Halle to marry, but the white slave owner still had control over their personhood. Sethe wanted to have a real wedding ceremony or some kind of celebration feeling “stuck not knowing the next step”(15). When Sethe repeatedly questioned Mrs. Garner, the only other woman at Sweet Home, about having a wedding, she patronized Sethe as “one sweet child”(15), then dismissed the topic. Sethe’s time raising her and Halle’s children at Sweet Home was challenging, particularly because there weren’t any women to talk to, or to show her how to feed and take care of children(90-91). Sethe didn’t have the black female community to model and help with maternal care. Sethe once tied Howard, her second child, by a rope while she was working, not because she was cruel, but because she was all alone. Sethe reflects, “I didn't like the look of it, but I didn't know what else to do”(91).
In contrast to the detached and impersonal relationship Sethe had with her ma’am, Sethe views her own children as a central goodness in her own identity. Although the image of breast milk continues to represent the physical means of sustaining life, the milk extends to represent emotional and and intangible connection through Sethe’s mothering experience additionally. This layer of meaning is a product of Sethe’s depleted past as a child.