True Meaning Of Freedom In Toni Morrison's Beloved

What is the True Meaning of “Freedom”?

An analysis of the psychological effects slavery imposes on those affected by it

Toni Morrison’s Beloved follows the disturbing lives of Sethe, Baby Suggs, Denver, Beloved, and Paul D. as they all discover that despite having escaped slavery, they are not truly free. Slavery is based on the owning and selling of slaves without regard to the slave’s familial situation, needs, wants, or anything in between. The selling and subsequent owning of another item in and of itself implies that the item is being possessed, and thus has no proper sense of self and is reduced to an object. Iannone states that by having no sense of self, the former slaves have a deep-rooted fear of trusting or becoming attached

in response to the way he was treated during his life in slavery included self-alienation and the ultimate struggle over his own masculinity. Since Paul D. has repeatedly only been told his worth in terms of dollars and cents, it is no wonder that he struggles to find worth in his own self and thus questions his own masculinity and value as a person rather than an object to be bought or bid on at auction. Paul’s self-alienation is more emotional as he packs away all of his emotions and feelings towards his trials and tribulations he encountered during his life in slavery stating, “he would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut” (86 Morrison). This bottling of emotions is also a direct cause of Paul D’s confusion regarding his standing as an “actual man.” He feels that releasing these emotions to anyone—including Sethe—will result in said person treating him as drastically inferior or even possibly pitying him, and thus he would be less of a man because of these actions. Despite Paul D’s inability to cope with his emotions in any other way but to package them up into the depths of his mind, he always seems to be a confidant for the people in his life, particularly Sethe. This, however, is complicated by Paul D’s key to survival: do not become attached to anything as it can be ripped away from you at any moment. This is another coping mechanism Paul D created in order to keep his emotions at bay during slavery. If he did not become attached to anything, then he could not miss anything when it was sold or mentally or physically abused. This was the direct cause of his self-alienation which spawned from the horrible psychological and emotional torture he endured because of