Seth's_Agonizing_Life

Sethe’s Agonizing Life Could slavery ever lead people to kill their own child' In the time of slavery, it was a major advantage to be of the Caucasian race. The treatment of African American slaves was so horrible with whipping, humiliation and torture. The torture that people endured, affected not only them but also affected people around them and the decisions they made. In the novel Beloved, the author Toni Morrison explores the devastating and far reaching impacts slavery has on the life of one particular slave, Sethe; slavery has affected and perhaps irrevocably changed many aspects of Sethe's life, her sense of identity, her relationships with her friends and fellow slaves, and her sense of what is morally acceptable. In the novel Beloved, the main character, Sethe’s, life changed after the death of Mr. Garner the landowner of Sweet Home. Mr. and Mrs. Garner treated their slaves with respect and they were able to make decision and respected as people (Schirf). Mrs. Garner asked the schoolteacher and his two nephews to manage the plantation (Morrison 259.) At this point, the lives of the slaves, especially Sethe, turned out to dehumanize with torture, violence and humiliation. Due to the torture, the slaves began attempting to escape and some actually made it from Sweet Home. The novel begins with Paul D, a former slave from the same plantation that Sethe was a slave, Sweet Home, comes to visit with Sethe. Sethe and Paul D begin to talk about some of the events that happen at Sweet Home. Sethe tells of the story of how she and her husband were to escape due to the pain they were dealing with. While she was waiting on him, the schoolteacher’s nephews attained her, raped, and sucked the milk from her as if she was a cow. After this endeavor, she told Mrs. Garner, the landowner about the incident of them taking her milk (Morrison 20). When the schoolteacher found out she had told her this, she experienced a beaten until the skin on her back ripped open. “Schoolteacher’s nephew represents a dismissal by whites of the dehumanizing qualities of Slavery” (Fuston-White 461). There was a time with this type torture Sethe started to make decision that were not the normal minded decisions. Sethe’s character is a tale of a true story of Margaret Garner a slave in Kentucky. Ms Garner killed one of her children to keep them from having to go through the life she had lived on the plantation that she worked as a slave (Parker). Sethe has sent her children ahead to her mother-in-law, Baby-Suggs’s home. Sethe had reached the community and in a good way, accepted as liberated by the community until the day of Sethe’s infanticide; due to the treatment that had been place upon Sethe, Sethe made a very unwise decision in killing her child to keep the child from slavery (Jones-Shoeman). As the manager of the plantation that was the owner of Sethe, the schoolteacher came to get Sethe and her children; she found it necessary to chop the head off her two-year-old baby with a hacksaw as she was beginning to kill all her children but stopped when the schoolteacher found her in the shed. After the Schoolteacher saw what had happen he just left Sethe and headed back to the plantation Sweet Home (Morrison 176). “It was not madness, but reality of slavery, that drove Sethe to kill her child, fully aware of the act and its brutality, as well as its compassion” (Fuston-White 461). After Sethe murders her daughter, Baby Suggs nurtures Sethe's two boys, Howard and Buglar, back to health. Since Sethe was still nursing her newborn, Denver she was allowed to take Denver to jail with her. After Sethe served her time for the slaying of her child, Sethe was still haunted from the slave life of Sweet Home after the schoolteacher became manager. The community she once knew as a family loving community had ostracized her and her children (Jones-Shoeman). Toni Morrison stated in the novel “Those twenty-eight happy days were followed by eighteen years of disapproval and solitary life” (Morrison 204). Not only was Sethe isolated but so where her children. So therefore Sethe just accepted this for what it is but it causes her stress that she does not let anyone know about. On the day, Paul D takes Sethe and Denver, her child that is still living at home with her, to the town carnival she is concerned about the way she is dressed and presented herself in the community (Morrison 56). Not only did the slavery life of Sweet Home affect Sethe it also affected the children. As Sethe tried making a home for the three children, a ghost believed to be the child she murdered, Beloved, haunted the home. As the boys were growing up the spirit became more noticeable. After a mirror, shattered Buglar had seen enough. Then two handprints from the spirit showed up in a cake and that was all it took for Howard. The two boys left the home for they had seen all of the spirit they wanted to deal with (Morrison 1). After the boys, left Denver and Sethe continued to live with the ghost until Paul D comes to visit. When Paul D comes to stay with Sethe and Denver, the spirits whom Sethe has decided is the spirit of the daughter she murdered, Beloved; becomes very prevalent to Paul D (Morrison 18). He manages to run the spirit away from the house until one day when a girl shows up at the home after they return from the town carnival (Morrison 60). Tensions arise within Sethe, Denver, and Paul D as Beloved's spirit reincarnated into a girl that suddenly appears in their lives. The girl is another affect from the slavery of Sweet Home because it is believed this is a ghost of the child Sethe killed. “For Sethe and Paul D, Beloved serves as a catalyst to awaken their emotions and memories, but she also aroused their fears (Corey 39). After the arrival of “Beloved”, the affects of fear and rage begin for Paul D and Denver. Beloved begins to cause friction between Paul D, Sethe, and causes Denver pain from taking attention away from Sethe that she is use to getting. The pain for Sethe becomes so much until Beloved was her only focus. The guilt of killing her child she tries to give it all back to Beloved and trying to tell her why she killed her but in the meantime leaves Denver feeling lonely (Morrison 65). As time progressed, Denver realized she had to take control if not her mother was withering away and die. She consumed herself with Beloved because Beloved became so demanding. Sethe was now doing everything for Beloved and allowed Beloved to take her food, with this Denver strikes out to find help (Morrison 281). As Denver was being tortured with Beloved’s selfish treatment of her mother, Denver struck out and asked for help in the community. After she went to talk with Lady Jones, food and gifts begin to show up in the yard for the family. As the community found out of the invasion of Beloved they bound together to stop torment that was taking place at 124Bluestone Road (Morrison 323) Even thought Sethe and Denver had been living free from slavery in actuality they weren't free due to the actions of her mother in the past but when the community heard of the invasion as they called it they reunited and came to the rescue like a family and started singing Beloved left and no one knew where to or why but was glad the ghost of Beloved was gone. Paul D heard of the news that the ghost was gone and he went back to care for Sethe as he had heard how bad Sethe had gotten with the torture of the ghost. In conclusion the novel Beloved, the author Toni Morrison explores the devastating and far reaching impacts slavery has on the life of one particular slave, Sethe. Sethe is humiliated, treated like an animal, demoralized along with tortured by her dead child. Not only is Sethe tortured so is her baby daughter Denver through the ghost of her dead sister. Slavery affects each and every character in this novel in some way or another. Works Cited Corey, Susan. ‘Toward the Limits of Mystery: The Grotesque in Toni Morrison’s Beloved’. The Aesthetics of Toni Morrison: Speaking the Unspeakable. Ed. Marc Conner. Jackson: Mississippi UP, 2000. 39. Fuston-White, Jeanna. “From the Seen to the Told”: The Construction of Subjectivity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved”. African American Review 36 (2002): p. 461 Jones-Shoeman, Cynthia. “Sethe’s Journey from Slavery to Ostracism”: Function of Community in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Web. 03 Nov. 2010. http://http://www.suite101.com/content/the-function-of-community-in-toni-morrisons-bel-a107944 Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Vintage International, 2004. Parker, Emma. “A New Hystery: History and Hysteria in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Twentieth Century Literature 47.1 (2001) Schirf, Diane L. "Beloved by Toni Morrison." Rev. of Book. Slywy. Web. 02 Nov. 2010. .