Sethe In Beloved

The issues that happened during slavery are often discussed, but not the damage it caused to the psyche of many African-Americans ‘and society as a whole. Slavery is one of America’s biggest sins. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Morrison explores the psychological affects of slavery and how too much motherly love can be destructive. Morrison brings these issues to the forefront through the character of Sethe. Sethe was a runaway slave who reached freedom, but suffered the consequences of never truly being free. Morrison uses supernatural elements to display Sethe’s consequences. She wanted a better life for her children by ¨keeping the past at bay” (Morrison 51), but she ended up doing more harm than good for her children. Slavery warped Sethe’s

morals and perception of motherhood. She was caught by slave catchers and ran to a shed with her children, ¨she simply swung the baby toward the wall planks, missed and tried to connect a second time” (Morrison 175).

Sethe did not think of this as murder, but rather than saving her children from the cruelties of being a slave.

Foster writes, “Beloved is in fact representative of the horrors to which a whole race subjected” (88). Slavery began in the 1600’s when African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia by Europeans for the production of tobacco. Slaves endured a number of horrendous things such as rape, beatings, and dehumanized. Slaves were considered animals instead of human beings. Being a mother was very important to Sethe because it made her feel like a human and her children were all that she had. Although Sethe and her other living children were free from slavery, they suffered from the baby ghost of Setheś deceased child. Morrison based Setheś character on a woman named Margaret Garner, whose case was widely discussed of all fugitive slave cases. Garner was a slave on a plantation in Boone County, Kentucky, in January of 1856 she and her four small children crossed

the frozen Ohio river in hopes of freedom. They successfully made it into Cincinnati and stayed at a relative’s home. Over twelve hours later, the Garner’s owners managed to get a warrant to go into the home. Before the owners could enter, Margret attempted to kill her children. She managed to kill her two-year-old daughter by slitting her throat, while her other children were crouched on the floor. The Garner’s owners and the police were shocked at what they had just witnessed. A local paper described the aftermath of the incident, Margaret expressed ¨that she had killed one, and would like to kill the three others rather than see them again reduced to slavery¨ (qtd. Reinharat 85). She viewed killing her child as a form of freedom rather than a spiteful and immoral act. Garner served on trial for murder but was acquitted and sent back to Kentucky. She gained support from many anti-slavery groups and criticism from others. A boat collision killed her infant daughter Margaret “expressed joy at seeing one more of her loved ones rescued from slavery” (qtd. Reinharat 89).
Sethe is a reflection of Margaret, they ¨confronted the gap between motherhood and the realities of motherhood in slavery¨ (Krumholz).

Being a mother and being a slave did not coexist with one another. Cosca writes, “slaves were dehumanized and objectified¨ (120), many families were torn apart because of slave auctions. Paul D explains how “each time he discovered large families of black people he made them identify over and over who each was, what relation, who, in fact, belonged to who” (Morrison 258). Paul D never experienced what it was like to have a family. Paul D’s lack of family made him very guarded and only made him love things “small and in secret” (Morrison 260). Slave mothers did not see their children again after a slave auction took place. This caused mothers to be overly protective of their children or too scared to develop a relationship with them. Sethe’s love for her children was described as being “too thick” (Morrison 193). Slaves often put their children first before themselves. Sethe’s plantation that she escaped was ironically called Sweet Home, she endured a number of horrendous things, one of them was getting whipped by Schoolteacher and his two boys and getting her milk taken while she was pregnant. Sethe adds emphasis on how they stole her milk, while retelling the story she repeats “And they took my milk!” (Morrison 20). Sethe was more concerned with the theft of her milk than getting beat. This shows how she puts her children first as a mother.

In modern times, it has been theorized that many African-American mothers assists their sons not to fight the battle of the oppressive system, such as the police. This practice has been “associated with the practice during slavery when parents were overly punitive in order to save their children from savage punishment” (Wilkins et al. 19).
The 13th amendment abolished slavery but Billingsley argues that “emancipation, ironically, translated into the freedom to die from starvation and illness” (qtd. in Wilkins et al. 19). African-Americans’ were not granted reparations, land, and denied access to other public facilities. The government failed to pass laws protecting the physical safety of former slaves and had limited rights. Former slaves were not equipped educationally in society because they were banned from reading and writing. African-Americans did not receive mental health treatment for most likely PTSD after the abolishment of slavery. PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is defined as a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock, typically involving disturbance of sleep and constant vivid recall of the experience with dulled responses to others and to the outside world. PTSD is very common