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Every day, people make decisions that are either right or wrong. After reading the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison, it is fair to say that Sethe’s decision on killing her baby Beloved was a reasonable decision. The first thing that comes to mind when finding out that Sethe killed her own child is disturbing and the reader immediately thinks that is very wrong and not okay, but the reader can’t just instantly think that if you do nott give it deep thought on why exactly she did what she did. To be brief, the reasons for which I strongly believe that Sethe’s decision was the right thing to do are she didn’t want her children to go through the suffering of experiencing slavery. Not only that, but there’s a difference between a mother killing a …show more content…
Sethe was kept working hard labor she was trapped in this small place and never got to see and experience everything beyond the land she was kept on. Sethe was naive and clueless on how to properly take care of her children. For example, in the novel Beloved the text says, “‘My woman? You mean my mother? If she did, I don't remember. I didn't see her but a few times out in the fields and once when she was working indigo. By the time I woke up in the morning, she was in line. If the moon was bright they worked by its light. Sunday she slept like a stick. She must of nursed me two or three weeks--that's the way the others did. Then she went back in rice and I sucked from another woman whose job it was. So to answer you, no. I reckon not. She never fixed my hair nor nothing. She didn't even sleep in the same cabin most nights I remember. Too far from the line-up, I guess’ (Morrison 36).” In summary, Sethe never had her mom around when she was growing up. Having a mom is very important in the process of growing up because mothers teach you how to care and love others. This is significant because Sethe, not being able to have her mother around as a child meant that she didn’t learn how to care for others. She just knew that it was tough to spend time with family and that they would always end up separated or losing each other. That is why I state once again that it was understandable why she killed Beloved because on one hand she did not know how to properly care for her children and she was going to end up losing Beloved in a very disturbing way anyhow. To support my claim further, the text also states, “‘I wish I'd a known more, but, like I say, there wasn't nobody to talk to. Woman, I mean. So I tried to recollect what I'd seen back where I was before Sweet Home. How the women did there. Oh they knew all about it. How to
During the short space of time (which is 28 days) Sethe embraces the dominant values of idealised maternity. Sethe’s fantasy is intended to end upon recover, however, it doesn’t, on that ground she declines to give her family a chance to be taken from her. Rather she endeavours to murder each of her four kids, prevailing the young girl whom she named Beloved. Sethe’s passion opposes the slave proprietor’s- and the western plot line's endeavours at allocations, for better or in negative ways.
As the plot progresses, Sethe is confronted with elements of her haunting past: traumatic experiences from her life as a slave, her daunting escape, and the measures she took to keep her family safe from her hellish owner plague Sethe into the present and force her to come to terms with the past. A definitive theme observed in the novel is slavery’s dehumanization of both master and servant. Slave owners beat their slaves regularly to subjugate them and instill the idea that they were only livestock. After losing most of the Sweet Home men, the Schoolteacher sets his sights on Sethe and her children in order to make Sweet Home “worth the trouble it was causing him” (Morrison 227).
As the story unfolds, it becomes increasingly evident that Sethe is emotionally unstable. Beginning with her life at Sweet Home, dealing with the everyday trials of sla...
The love that a parent feels for a child is the most indescribable feeling in the world. Most parents would do anything and everything to protect their children, but not all parents are aware of the danger their child faces. In the short story "Killings," by Andre Dubus, a mother and father are faced with the tragic death of their son. Both parents, although both may not admit to it, believe that the murderer deserves the same consequences their son suffered. Matthew Fowler takes matters into his own hands, and along with his friend, Willis Trottier, kills Richard Strout. The death of Richard Strout should not be tried as a murder, but as a justifiable homicide. Matthew Fowler, the father of Frank Fowler, had every reason to reciprocate Strout's actions. A child should not be taken from a parent in the way that Frank was taken from his.
Sethe was born into slavery and knew the struggle of being a black woman growing up in the mid-1800s. During this time there were growing number of slave wanting to runaway to the north where they could be free from the slave master and the plantations. Like many slaves, Sethe became victim to the fugitive slave laws that allowed slave masters to come to the north and capture runaway slaves. However, like my quote a mother knows no law when it comes to her family. By slitting the throats of all of her children, Sethe made the ultimate sacrifice in order to save her children from the hard life as a
The antagonist, Sethe, is not keen to let her kids end up in such a miserable lifestyle that she lives. Defending that she would rather see them away from the wretchedness of Earth and instead dead in Heaven. Slavery is an exceedingly cruel and nasty way of life, and as many see it, living without freedom is not living. Slavery dishonored African Americans from being individuals and treated them just as well as animals: no respect and no proper care. For example, Sethe recalls the memory of her being nursed as baby by saying, "The little white babies got it first
Sethe shows this love for her family throughout the novel even when her family is going through rough times. “She did not want children, she wanted me, just me, and she got me” (A Prayer for Owen Meany 2.3) John is talking about how even though his birth is unplanned his mom loves him utterly and the relationship that they have is one that John treasures and values. In the end of Beloved the ghost of Beloved
...from slavery as well as the misery slavery itself causes her. Ultimately, Sethe makes a choice to let go of the past as she releases Beloved's hand and thus moves on to the future. In the very last segment of the novel, the narrator notes that finally "they forgot [Beloved]. Like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep" (290). Sethe no longer represses history but actually lets it go. As a result, Beloved becomes nothing more than "an unpleasant dream," suggesting that she does not exist as a real person, but rather has no substance as a mere fantasy or hallucination which has no value to the community or to Sethe, Denver, or Paul D. Sethe moves on with her life as she has already faced the past, tried to make amends for her mistakes, and finally realizes her own value in life.
The dangerous aspect of Sethe's love is first established with the comments of Paul D regarding her attachment to Denver. At page 54, when Sethe refuses to hear Paul D criticize Denver, he thinks: "Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous( )" he deems Sethe's attachment dangerous because he believes that when "( ) they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack ( )" having such a strong love will prevent her from going on with her life. Paul D's remarks indicate that evidently the loved one of a slave is taken away. Mothers are separated from their children, husbands from their wives and whole families are destroyed; slaves are not given the right to claim their loved ones. Having experienced such atrocities, Paul D realizes that the deep love Sethe bears for her daughter will onl...
...nd her strength. From the kiss on Sethe’s neck, to her new born child reenactment, Sethe succumbs to the job of a mother and tends to her, unaware of the fact that she is losing her health and strength in the process. Beloved is given the best of things from her mother such as food, and when there is nothing else left to give, “Beloved invented desire” (Kochar). Beloved at first seems like the victim in the novel due to the idea that she is supposedly the reincarnation of Sethe’s murdered child, but towards the end of the story Sethe becomes victimized by Beloved and her numerous desires. Sethe grows thin and weak while Beloved grows pregnant and healthy. Although Beloved may be portrayed as only the antagonist in the novel, she also symbolizes an intervention since she leads the characters to understand their pasts and in the end exposes the meaning of community.
was no mother figure spoke of, just her father, which she lived with alone other then
There are two ways of interpreting the killing of Beloved, Sethe could. be seen as saving her, motivated by true love or selfish pride? By Looking at the varying nature of Sethe, it can be said that, she is a. women who choose to love their children but not herself. She kills the baby, because in her mind, her children are the only part of her that has not been soiled by slavery, she refuses to contemplate that by. showing this mercy, she is committing a murder.
She struggled to keep her children, but she decided to it the wrong and inhuman way. For the woman in the poem, she decided to kill her child because the child was a reminder of her master. After traveling for the freedom she made a decision that she was not going to keep a baby by her master. Women made immoral and inhuman decisions, but they both made their decisions differently. The woman Seth in “Beloved” wanted all of her kids to be free, so she sent her children ahead of time to Ohio to be free.
Sethe still thought it was for best because she said “If I hadn’t have killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her”(Morrison 210). It doesn’t make sense that Sethe would feel that way because at least if the baby had died it wouldn’t be by her hand. Sethe also tried to kill two of her sons, but they lived and they were greatly affected and eventually left the family.. The mother also killed the child so harshly when her sons were bleeding in sawdust. In the book it says “ She simply swung the baby toward the wall planks”(Morrison 157).
The relationships Sethe had with her children is crazy at first glance, and still then some after. Sethe being a slave did not want to see her children who she loved go through what she herself had to do. Sethe did not want her children to have their “animal characteristics,” put up on the bored for ...