At the center of Toni Morrison's Beloved is the heart-wrenching and terrifying scene in the woodshed, where Sethe is in the process of trying to kill Denver after having killed her older daughter and injured her two boys, Howard and Buglar. Morrison in a way, eases us into the scene by providing us the viewpoints of the four horsemen - the slave catcher, schoolteacher's nephew, school teacher, and the sheriff. This scene definitely shook me, especially the brutality that is depicted through the baby's blood flowing all over Sethe and her attempt to slam Denver into the wall. However, it was Paul D's reaction and conversation with Sethe which really left me confused, of whether my perception of Sethe that I had built up for the first 150 pages or so of the novel should change after fully learning what happened 28 days after Sethe's arrival at Bluestone Road. Toni Morrison certainly hints quite a bit at what happened with Sethe's daughter (think the sad ghost, scar on Beloved's neck), but we finally get to put the pieces together in this scene. Knowing these details, it made me start questioning whether Sethe's actions that day were valid - Paul D sums it up quite well, saying "You got two feet, Sethe, not four." (194) Is it fair to say that Sethe shouldn't have been as harsh, maybe she should've spared the lives of her kids? Is it our place to judge, considering what we know about Sethe's experiences at Sweet Home but more importantly, what we also don't know. Sethe's experiences informed her decision, especially in a situation where she only had two choices - either to kill her children or send them back to the place where her worst and darkest memories took place. It's important to analyze the system of slavery itself and how Sethe's story represents resistance to the oppressive system.
Slavery was designed to take away the humanity of the person trapped in it. We can see this in the way slaves were treated - they were literally considered property and could be sold off with a price being put on their lives. The value of human life can never be quantified but that is exactly what slavery did. It drained the humanity and dignity out of a person. Paul D's scene with the rooster is an example of this - even though he's been fed his whole life that he is one of the 'Sweet Home men'. However, he's standing there with a bit fixed on him, unable to talk, about to be sold off, and he sees a rooster trotting about, free to do whatever it likes. Paul D and we as readers realize that no matter whatever myths are told about how slaves were treated as human beings, their worth was reduced to an amount of money and they were given less freedom than animals. Halle breaking down and covering his face with butter from the churn also shows this - he's also been told that he's a man and is given the freedom to do manly things such as use rifles but when it comes to his own wife being assaulted and her milk being stolen, he's unable to do anything except watch.
Slavery also paid no respect whatsoever to familial and especially, mother-child bonds. Baby Suggs herself was separated from seven of her eight children, barely getting to spend a few years with them. Sethe's mom as well throws her children over the slave ship and never even gives them names, knowing the brutality they would face on the shores of America. Sethe knows this, due to her own experiences being raised and breastfed by someone that was not her mother. Therefore, she makes sure that she can give her milk to her own children - the one thing in the world she can give them. The system of slavery violates her rights and love as a mother so much that she could never be sure of when her child might be sold to a different state and she would never get to see them again. Sethe represents true motherly love - her journey to Bluestone road is indicative of it. She's carrying a child in her womb and her feet are swollen out of recognition, her clothes are ripped, and milk is going down her dress but she still goes from Kentucky to Ohio because as she says, "I had to get my milk to my baby girl." She doesn't make this journey for herself; she makes it so that her children do not have to go through what she went through. The scene in the form particularly stands out - Sethe's not only violated by being pinned down while the "boys with the mossy teeth" take her milk and school teacher takes notes. They try to steal her milk from her children, when it was the one thing that she could give to them. It wasn't just Sethe that was violated - it was her motherhood that was violated as well. There was already no respect for her bonds with her children and her ability to stay with them but the schoolteachers took away the very last thing she could give to her children. Sethe knows that her children are going to be abused in this way, their humanness stolen from them, and maybe her daughters will have to deal with the same trauma that she did. Mr. Mitchell pointed out in class that if Sethe and her children would be taken back to Kentucky, they just wouldn't be allowed to go about their lives in the same fashion at Sweet Home prior to the escape - Sethe would probably be sold down South and her children would be split up and sold as well, making sure she would suffer the same fate as Baby Suggs of not being able to see her children to grow up. In attempting to kill her children, Sethe makes a statement that death is safe, while slavery is not. Sethe determines the fate of her children, not schoolteacher and his boys. So can we say that maybe, Sethe's murder of her children, as horrifying it is, is her resistance to the system of slavery?
I agree completely with your analysis! I think that while it is horrifying and barbaric, it was also Sethe's only chance to free her children. She's not only been through the disturbing experiences at Sweet Home, but she's seen what it can do to the men around her. She doesn't want her daughter to be assaulted and she doesn't want her sons to have to live with that image in their heads.
ReplyDeleteReally great points! I think it's really hard for us as readers to judge what Sethe does because we will never really fully understand the effects of slavery on Sethe and what she is trying to keep her children from. I think the way that other characters react to her actions only complicate the way we look at it, for me especially when we saw the way Denver and her brothers became scared of her mother after the events. I think you do a really great job in this post of expressing all the hardships Sethe has endured to get her children to freedom, and how her reasons for her actions may not be easy for even Paul D to understand because although he was at Sweet Home, he never had children who he desperately needed to save like Sethe did.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I really like your analysis of Sethe's actions. For us readers sitting comfortably reading a book, it's definitely hard to grasp Sethe's thoughts when she does what she does. However, I agree that once we put what she's been through at Sweet Home into context, her motives become sympathizable. There are worse things than death.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I agree with you that Sethe's experiences and actions represent rebellion against slavery. She is really an extraordinary character. I also really like your use of evidence to support your argument.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up great points through your thorough analysis of Sethe and her ensuing actions. I believe judgement of Sethe is not acceptable because as readers, our job is to empathize with the characters and see what led them to react to situations the way they did. Judging the actions of Sethe, or calling her love "too thick" like Paul D, defeats the purpose of the book's plot almost. Good job!
ReplyDeleteHey Janaki, answering your question whether we (the readers) are at liberty to judge Sethe's decision, I would say no, we're not. Morrison's intention with including that incident as an important plot point in the novel wasn't to allow the readers to either agree or disagree with Sethe's decision. It was instead a way to highlight the atrocities associated with Slavery- how for a mother, killing her child is a better alternative than allowing them to be forced into slavery.
ReplyDeleteHi Janaki, this is an insightful blog post about arguably one of the most difficult scenes from a book that most of us have read. Of course, none of us have the ability to consider the position that Sethe is in order to make the decision that she does in this part of the novel. I feel that we can have educated and based opinions about what Sethe did. Regardless of what Sethe did, her children would suffer. Sethe's choice in this situation is a testament to the love that she possesses for her children. Sethe tries throughout this novel to prevent her children from experiencing the generational trauma that has occurred in their family. I think that it is definitely fair to say that Sethe's murder of her children is her resistance to the system of slavery.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I can see where Paul D is coming from, when he responds as he does to Sethe's story--can you imagine hearing this as a true thing that happened to a person you love and think you know? He is shocked and appalled, and he responds with a reflexive formulation that casts Sethe's actions as "animalistic." Of course, this is a VERY loaded kind of language to use with Sethe, as we learn that so much of her trauma at Sweet Home is related to being treated as livestock in various ways, and her escape was in fact an assertion of her *humanity*, a total rejection of schoolteacher's animalistic treatment of the enslaved people on Sweet Home.
ReplyDeleteSo I understand the emotion behind Paul's line, but I am also very glad when he essentially "takes it back" at the very end, saying he's not come back to "count" Sethe's feet but to "rub" them--to give her human comfort and fellowship and support. Because Paul is in fact WRONG in this statement. An animal might protect its young, but not in the complex way in which Sethe is making a moral calculation that depends on a knowledge of slavery as an institution and an all-too-specific sense of what will happen to her children if schoolteacher gets them. This sacrifice she's making (that is definitely the right word, as you use it in your title) is very much a HUMAN act of complex moral reasoning.
Sethe's story is full of so much trauma, it's almost unbelievable and most definitely unimaginable for people like us who read it all from our comfortable lives. Sethe's decision showed the extent of the horrors of slavery, that it would lead a mother who was as loving as Sethe was to kill her own children so that they might escape the pain she had to go through at Sweet Home. Morrison makes it clear how much love Sethe has for her children, making absolutely no room for excuses about the experiences in slavery that Sethe had to go through. Great job!!
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