Murder or Mercy?

‘“Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.’ Sethe shook her head. 'Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part’” (Morrison 8). Paul D questions the absence of Baby Suggs as he and Sethe sit on the front porch of 124. In the early pages of Toni Morrison’s book, Beloved, the theme of mercy is immediately present and stressed. The characters of Beloved live with the traumatic effects of living through slavery, and the value of life terrorizes their subconscious. The epicenter of Morrison’s book is Sethe killing her daughter out of love and mercy. Mercy is a powerful motive that drives human instinct, especially that of a mother’s psyche. Exploring this concept, Sethe’s actions were extreme, but not unique. They were actually explainable and even defendable.
‘“I ain’t got no friends take a handsaw to their own children’” (Morrison 221). Sethe is not the first or last mother to murder her own child. Famously, a woman named Andrea Yates was also found guilty of a horrific spree of infanticide against her five children. Killing them in the family bathtub, Yates proceeded to drown her son two-year-old son Luke, three-year-old son Paul, and five-year-old son John, her six month old daughter Mary, and seven-year-old son Noah (Picard). Although the outcome was the same, compared to Yates, Sethe’s dealings were not nearly as torturous and disturbed. The motives of both women were completely different. Yates’s actions were psychologically based and derived from depression and insanity while love and fear drove Sethe’s actions. It is hard to explain what went on in the mind of Yates, but it can easily be deduced that mercy underlined Seth’s unorthodox act of love. Both women went to jail and had to live with their regrettable ...

... middle of paper ...

...proposition of an acceptable solution, relating to the outcome of the novel.
Oncol, Ann. "Bad News for Taxpayers, Good News for Patients, in the UK." Annals of Oncology 13.6 (2002): 811-13. Oxford Index. Web. 16 Jan. 2014. This work is useful because it is a medical citation that gives the paper higher credibility and background. It helps provide a medical analysis on mercy killing and assisted suicide, the stance taken on the novel.
Picard, Anna. "Could you too be a killer mummy?" New Statesman [1996] 9 July 2001: 29. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Jan. 2014. Print. This work is included in the paper because it provides a nonfictional story similar to the, main, fictional piece. The author tells the story of a mother killing her children and the "reasoning" behind it. This ultimately gives the paper a more complete dimension by providing a comparable story.