Cruelty In Toni Morrison's Beloved

Dedicated to the “sixty million and more” lost lives due to slavery, Toni Morrison wrote a slave narrative, Beloved, after being appalled by the lack of concern modern time has for the horrific crime of slavery (Beloved Dedication). Occurring during the 1600s, slavery is undoubtedly part of American history, and Morrison refuses to allow present day America to forget in her novel, where she forces readers to comprehend the cruel treatment slaves once endured. Her novel focuses on once slaves who are haunted by a ghost, representing slavery, refusing to let the characters forget and move on from their slave past. The characters recalls memories of cruelty inflicted up on them, and reveals the themes Morrison wishes to convey. In the novel Beloved

This is revealed when Paul D, one of their former slaves, recalls that he along with other slaves were hurt because they “had been isolated in a wonderful lie” (221). Having lived a safe life at Sweet Home, sheltered by the kindness of the Garners, the slaves were completely unprepared by the harsh reality beyond Sweet Home. By giving them false hope and ideas that “they were special,” this makes the Garners perpetrators of cruelty (221). Furthermore, the couple, believing themselves to be compassionate, cannot truly empathize with their slaves. When Sethe, another slave, asks Mrs, Garner if she was allowed to have her own wedding, Mrs. Garner merely laughed and said, “You are one sweet child” (26). Taking her serious question as a joke, it shows she takes it as a silly fantasy of Sethe. She cannot understand or sympathize with Sethe and her denied right to be allowed a wedding ceremony because she was a black slave, instead brushing the issue off with acceptance and amusement. With the Garners as an example, culprits of cruelty cannot empathize with the

In relation to American history, white people will socially dominate black people, which is one of the main factors as to why whites enslaved blacks. Because they carry more social power, they will also define cruelty as justifiable, seen when Sethe states “the world was done up the way white folks loved it” (188). Benefitting greatly from the labor of slavery, white people will see their abuse as reasonable and lawful, when it is clearly an exploitation of their unfair social power. From a black perspective, they accuse that whites will create definitions of what is right or wrong so they can profit from. Questioning this social order, Paul D ponders “if a whiteman saying it make it so” (220). Even if whites could decide the standards and definitions in society, he still recognizes that it is not necessarily morally right. Similarly, accepting cruelty as a reasonable way to treat slaves does not equate to it being ethical. Morrison teaches that the socially powerful may have the influence to define cruelty, but it does not make it