Slavery Quotes From Beloved

Harriet Ann Jacobs once said, “Death is better than slavery,” ("Harriet Ann Jacobs Quotes.”). Toni Morrison’s character Beloved, from the book Beloved, represents slavery and she does this by forcing freed slaves to deal with their pasts. Beloved is a character that affects people, including Sethe and Paul D.

Beloved only affects people who have been through slavery, in different ways. She affects Sethe the most. A few weeks after Sethe had escaped to freedom, she was faced with a tough choice. When she saw that schoolteacher and a few others had come to take her and her children back to slavery, Sethe was so terrified that she did something drastic (149). Seth decided to kill her children and commit suicide, but in the end, she was only

able to kill one child. This child was called the already walking? baby.
Sethe did this to save her children from the pain and torture she had to go through.

She said, “I took my babies where they’d be safe” (164). This traumatizes Sethe, she wishes she didn’t kill the already walking? baby, saying, “When I put that headstone up I wanted to lay in there with you, put your head on my shoulder and keep you warm,” (204). When Sethe starts to see Beloved as the child she has lost, she desperately tries to make up for everything she has done. The narrator describes this change by saying, “At first they played together, A whole month,” and “Denver began to drift from the play, but she watched it, alert for any sign that Beloved was in danger. Finally convinced there was none, and seeing her mother that happy, that smiling— how could it go wrong?—she let down her guard and it did,” (240). At this point, Sethe gives into Beloved’s every whim and demand, even at the cost of her own safety and well being

(242-243).
Beloved represents Sethe’s choice to kill her children instead of going back to slavery. Sethe had lost so much in her time as a slave. She grew up knowing that loving someone was a choice that would just hurt her in the end, yet she still chose to love her children because, “Thin love ain’t love at all,” (164). The choice to kill her children haunts her. She can no longer live her life to the fullest. Her two of her children leave her, her mother-in-law dies, no one wishes to be friends with her, and she’s left with only one child (1). Sethe has shut everyone out in the world except for Denver, but then Beloved shows up. She gives Sethe the chance to repent for killing the already walking? baby. Giving into Beloved’s every whim and taking care of her gives Sethe the chance to move on. She doesn’t start to move on however, until Paul D comes into her life again and tells her “You are your best thing, Sethe. You are,” (273).
Paul D promises to helps Sethe heal from all of the things she faced while a slave, but he has his own problems that Beloved forced him to face. Paul D is from Sweet Home, just like Sethe, but he has a very different story. Paul D attempts to escape Sweet Home, but is caught. Here he is forced to watch his close friend, Sixo, be burned alive (226). After this, “They put a three-spoke collar on him so he can’t lie down and they cain his ankles together,” (227). This humiliated Paul D and made him feel like less of a man and more of a beast (273). After being sold even further south, and attempting to murder someone, he was sent to prison. Being sent to prison broke Paul D. Here he was forced to stay a cell that wasn’t big enough for him to stand, he was connected to men by chains on his wrists and ankles, and he was being sexually abused (108-109). After he escaped from this prison, he didn’t know what to do. The narrator tells us this by saying, “Paul D had no idea of what to do and knew less than anybody it seemed” (112). Eventually he decides to go to freedom in the North. When he arrived in Delaware, he put all of his feelings into a metaphorical tobacco tin, saying “It was some time before he could put Alfred, Georgia, Sixo, schoolteacher, Halle, his brothers, Sethe, Mister, the taste of iron, the sight of butter, the smell of hickory, notebook paper, one by one, into the tobacco tin lodged in his chest. By the time he got to 124 nothing is this world could pry it open,” (113).
While this is what Paul D thought at the time, he was wrong.

Paul D had been living with his tobacco tin sealed up tight when he arrived at 124. Paul D’s tobacco tin burst open when he was raped by Beloved (117). When he finds out what Sethe did to her children, it becomes too much for him and he leaves (165). Paul D is staying in the town’s church when the narrator says, “His tobacco tin, blown open, spilled contents floated freely and made hi their play and prey” (218). At this point, Paul D is dealing with his issues by drinking, and it isn’t until Stamp Paid comes to talk to him that he deals with his issues (235). After Beloved disappears, Paul D goes to see Sethe. This is where he realizes that Sethe can help him heal, just as he can help Sethe heal. He says, “Her tenderness about his neck jewelry—its three wands, like attentive baby rattlers, curving two feet into the air. How she never mentioned or looked at it, so he did not have to feel the shame of being collard like a beast. Only this woman Sethe could have left him his manhood like that,”

(273).
Beloved represents slavery and she does this by forcing freed slaves to deal with their pasts. She forced Sethe to deal with her past by coming in the form of the daughter that she killed. Sethe dealt with her issues by giving Beloved what she wanted and doing everything that was asked of her. This happened until the point where she was put in the same situation as before, but this time, she decided to go after the threat. While Beloved came in a certain form for Sethe, she didn’t for Paul D. Beloved forces Paul D to deal with his past by raping him. She opens the tobacco tin that held all of his worst memories and experiences. When this burst open, Paul D if forced to face the past. He does this, and eventually decides that he realizes that to completely heal he needs the help of Sethe and Sethe needs his help too.