Middle_Passage

Middle Passage Life without Identity Sixty million and more. The number of Africans estimated killed on the Middle Passage. They never made it to the life of bondage and stolen identity. Dying then may have been a blessing, never having to live a life knowing freedom was on the other side of the fence, never having to have live a life of freedom tainted brutal experience of having no self. Toni Morrison’s Beloved depicts the lives of former slaves who are trying to live within the restraints of a traumatizing past. It is Morrison’s use of parallel characters which emphasizes the degree to which slavery penetrated the human soul. Sethe and Paul D shared the traumatizing experience of slavery at Sweet Home, and were brought back to the emotions they felt there through the presence of Beloved. No matter how these characters attempted to block emotions of the past, slavery proved to be a more powerful force, destroying their identities. Both Paul D and Sethe lived on Sweet Home plantation- a haven from the other slave communities of the south. Sweet Home’s key difference lay in Garner’s treatment of his slaves. Their relationship was “true metal”-the slaves “were believed and trusted, but sethe, paul, sweet, home, slavery, emotions, both, back, past, life, beloved, slaves, schoolteacher, identity, characters, never, lives, bondage, after, slave, plantation, gone, freedom, force, felt, became, while, soul, reduced, put, men, human, having, experience, even