Slavery and Identity Reconstruction of Female Characters in Toni Morrison’s Beloved
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National University Of Modern Languages
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Beloved
In Toni Morrison's **"Beloved,"** female characters navigate the trauma of slavery and its impact on their identities. The novel follows Sethe, a former slave, as she struggles to rebuild her sense of self and reclaim her agency, highlighting the deep, lasting effects of slavery on personal and col...
“Slavery and Identity Reconstruction of Female Characters in Toni
Morrison’s Beloved”
1
,Table of Contents
Abstract..........................................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review..........................................................................................................................................3
Methodology..................................................................................................................................................3
Analysis.........................................................................................................................................................4
Sethe’s Relationship with her Children......................................................................................................4
Sethe’s Relationship with her Daughters...................................................................................................4
Sethe’s Relationship with Men..................................................................................................................5
Sethe’s Quest for identity...........................................................................................................................5
Denver’s Quest for Identity........................................................................................................................6
Beloved Quest for identity.........................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................................6
References.....................................................................................................................................................7
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,Abstract
This dissertation entitled Slavery and Identity Reconstruction of Female Characters in Toni
Morrison’s Beloved, aims at showing the way slavery imposes a harsh system that pushes slave
owners to treat their black slaves like beasts, and imposes on them rules that a human being
cannot bear. Hence, slavery affected slaves psychologically, and forced them to believe that they
had lost their identities under such treatments. In the novel, female characters are the most
affected by this constitution. It made them fear about everything, especially Sethe. Her past
experience traumatized her, it let on her psychological troubles. The novel itself represents the
story of Sethe and her tragic life during slavery. For that reason, this research work attempts to
explore and analyze the social status of slavery in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved (1987). The
analysis highlights the effects of slavery upon the female characters. It also points out how
slavery contributed in making them believe that their identity vanished and they have to
construct a new one.
Literature Review
Shelby Larrick in her article entitled Psychological Criticism of Toni Morrison’s Beloved argues
that the behavior of some of Toni Morrison’s Beloved characters at the beginning may seem
brutal and savage, but when getting deep in their stories and their past, it is easy to understand
that their actions were reactions to the psychological oppression of the traumas of slavery. Each
one of these characters had suffered in his way, either directly or indirectly, from slavery.
Carmen Gillespie said in her book "Toni Morrison: Forty Years in the Clearing" that Beloved’s
story is a painful one because it tells many things through its lines. It speaks about memory and
forgetfulness at the same time, also about negation and recuperation. Through Sethe’s flashbacks
one can feel memory, but she wants to forget that horrible past. So she is both denying and
recalling the past. It is a part of her life that she cannot omit or change. In addition to the
previous critics, Adriana Zuhlke in her book "Toni Morrison’s Novel "Beloved" An Analysis",
argues that Beloved is a novel full of emotions. It includes many feelings such as love, hatred,
scare, and affection. All those emotions are presented through Sethe’s motherly love, a mother is
passionate and loves her children, but she hates slavery, and she becomes scared when she thinks
that they will be used as slaves to serve the whites. The views of Bloom, Larrick, Gillespie and
Zuhlke are as a support to Toni Morrison’s objective, because the writer’s aim is to show and
highlight the reality of African Americans way of living during slavery, their miseries and
unhappiness.
Methodology
Research methodology is purely qualitative in this research paper. Analysis of text has been done
purely keeping in view the original text. The present work is done to examine the way identity
was destroyed by slavery, which was one of society’s major issues of that period, and how slaves
resisted under such a harsh and severe way of living. The novel as a whole is related to life under
slavery. It is considered to be one of the most famous books written to represent the period of
slavery and to tell its horrors. It played a big role in showing the reader the savagery and the
harshness that slaves working on Sweet Home experienced, such as violence, and who were
treated as if they were nonhumans.
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,Analysis
Sethe’s Relationship with her Children
Sethe is extremely devoted to her children; she considers them as a part of herself: "… Sethe
began to talk, explain, describe how much she had suffered, been through, for her children,
waving away flies in grape arbors, crawling on her knees to a lean-to"(168). This former slave
woman is an example of a rebellious mother, who murders one of her four children to avoid her
physical and emotional dread of a life spent under slavery; "While Sethe, who is excessively
invested in motherhood, asserts her position as subject in the discourse of the good mother, she
also treats her children as part of herself, not as separate, and thus makes life and death decisions
for them"(ctd in Beaulieu 37). Sethe is given the role to speak about the past. She is speaking
about the act she commits when she attempts to cut the throat of her daughter. Bhaskar A.Shukla
argues that; "Sethe eventually confronts the memory of her daughter’s death"(89). That hurt her
but she had no choice, for her that was the best and the only way to protect her baby. Sethe was
sure that if her daughter is taken back to slavery, she will suffer like her mother. She will die
under the harsh rules of slavery, or she will be killed by the masters; "if I hadn’t killed her, she
would have died and that is something I could not bear happen to her"(142). Sethe’s experience
of slavery was the cause that encouraged her to murder her daughter. She knows that pity doesn’t
exist in the hearts of the masters. She declares that even though she regrets what she did to her
daughter, she preferred that rather giving her to slave owners; "I couldn’t let all that go back to
where it was, and I couldn’t let her nor any of em live under schoolteacher"(116). Her act of
killing can be understood as Sethe’s excessive love for her children.
Sethe’s Relationship with her Daughters
Sethe never experiences her mother’s love "My woman? You mean my mother? If she did, I
don’t remember. I didn’t see her but few times out in the fields and once when she was working
indigo"(44). So this can explain her attachment to her children. She maybe is trying to do with
her children what her mother didn’t do with her. She wants to protect them. The relationship
between son and mother is clearly seen in the novel. Zita Rarastesa states in her book Love and
Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: "For a while, her position as a mother made her lose
her individuality. It meant that she only considered herself a mother and extended much energy
to fit in the role of mother for her children, especially for the daughter she killed"(chapter three).
Sethe is so close to her daughters, mostly Beloved, she wants to get back all the lost time when
Beloved was far from her. Sethe’s regrets about her murdered daughter pushes her to believe that
this woman who came to her home is her daughter, so she offers all her life and time to Beloved,
just to serve her whenever she wants; "We’ll smell them together, Beloved. Beloved made Sethe
remember always the past and live it in the present. Shelby Larrick explains that: "Sethe brings
Beloved into her home, believing she is the daughter killed out of love and protection so many
years before. Beloved becomes a haunting figure that feeds off of the lives of those around her"
The basic element to form a strong personality is the family, but Sethe didn’t have a family; she
didn’t even see her mother; "By the time I woke up in the morning, she was in line. If the moon
was bright, they worked by its light. Sunday, she slept like a stick. She must have nursed me
two or
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,three weeks—that’s the way the others did"(44). Sethe’s miseries during her enslavement formed
her troubled personality.
A mother is supposed to love and take care of her children. The maternal instincts create a very
strong force beside Sethe. Johanna Wising wrote an article entitled Motherhood and the Heritage
of Slavery in Toni Morrison’s Novels Sula and Beloved in which she speaks about Sethe and
says: "Sethe is a woman of tremendous, inner strength who has survived the brutality which was
a common aspect of slavery. As a result of having experienced the evils of slavery her greatest
fear is that her children will suffer this as well".
Sethe’s Relationship with Men
Sethe’s relationship with her husband Halle is strong because they loved each other when they
were at sweet Home, but now she hates him because he was absent when she needed him,
because if he was by her side, those horrors that Sethe lived wouldn’t happen. She considers her
husband the only responsible for her act of killing her daughter and for her two boys running out
from home. She was alone with no protection, neither from her family nor from her husband. As
Tiya Miles states: "Sethe learns later that her husband, who disappeared, had witnessed her
humiliation and could not survive the fact of it"(62). But she was proud of what she did to
protect her children "I did it. I got us all without Halle too"(Morrison 115). Contrary to Halle,
she loved Paul. D. They experienced slavery together, so they know many things about each
other; "Almost from the moment of Paul D’s arrival, Denver is threatened by his relationship
with her mother and by the memories that they share but she does not"(Gillespie 20). Sethe was
very happy when Paul. D told her that he wants to have a baby with her; "I want you pregnant,
Sethe. Would you do that for me? Now she was laughing and so was he"(Morrison 92). One can
say that, Paul. D appeared at the moment when Sethe needed someone to share her pain with.
Sethe’s Quest for identity
Sethe’s background limits her actual thinking and understanding of things. She is never going to
pass on her bad memories. Her life as a slave played an important part in her life story. Slaves
were considered nonhumans; their masters used their power upon them to gain much more
benefits. They imposed their rules and forced them to work as much as possible. Injustice and
inhumanity were the principles of the slave owners. Slave masters beat Sethe until they formed a
kind of tree in her back "It’s a tree, Lu. A chokecherry tree. See, here’s the trunk—it’s red and
split wide open, full of sap, and this here’s the parting for the branches"(Morrison 57). This body
full of scars and wounds shows the frightening experience of the past, both physically and
psychologically. Sethe’s body is not a suitable place, where identity could be recognized in a
positive way; "One of the aspects of slavery which resulted in negative effects on the slaves’
self-image was the fact that they were sold. Slaves were regarded as not being human; they were
products with a price"(Wising5). Sethe’s past full of misery and cruelty shapes her life to the
extent that she is not able to recover her identity; she loses her personality. The horrible act of
cutting the throat of her daughter made Paul. D think about her real feelings towards her
children, as Harold Bloom states; " Sethe’s professed lack of regret scares Paul D and leads him
to question her humanity (“You got two feet, Sethe, not four”)" (8). Paul. D was also a slave, but
he cannot accept what Sethe did to her daughter. He considered that act as inhuman and this
made him fear because Sethe did not regret it. Identity can be formed by the family, the society,
and the environment, but for Sethe she could not have an
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, identity because she is separated from her family and then neglected by the society, and the most
important aspect is the environment where she lived.
Denver’s Quest for Identity
Denver had never gone outside the house. She was obsessed by the idea that all the community’s
people hate them and do not want them there. She was also affected by the idea that her mother
would kill her if she went out and the slave catchers came to take her; "Because their house is
haunted by the spirit of Beloved, before she returns, no children have ever dared to seek
closeness with Denver"(Larrick 3). Denver did not have an identity. She was all the time at
home, no friends, no family rather than her mother who most of the time was silent. By the end
of the novel, Denver decided to go out and ask for help; "Denver knew it was on her. She would
have to leave the yard; step off the edge of the world, leave the two behind and go ask somebody
for help" (170). She didn’t want to wait anymore. She felt that it was time for her to start her own
way of protecting her mother; "Waiting for me. Tired from her long journey back. Ready to be
taken care of; ready for me to protect her. This time I have to keep my mother away from her.
That’s hard, but I have to. It’s all on me"(146). Denver wanted to make a new beginning, starting
from keeping her mother away from danger. It is clear that she wants to make a new starting and
to build a new identity far from fear and loneliness “. She becomes a more confident and stronger
woman"(Gillespie 38). One can argue that Denver created her identity through strengthening her
own personality. She gained confidence and this helped in building her individuality.
Beloved Quest for identity
Beloved lost her life and identity when her mother cut her throat. Pamela B. June claims that;
"Most obviously, Beloved’s scar on her neck reveals her identity as the daughter murdered by
Sethe"(24). One can argue that Beloved lost her identity when her mother gave up on her. But
she regained it now since she is back to life even though it is just as a ghost. For Sethe Beloved
had never died, she believed that she was always with her. She gave her an identity through her
thoughts; Beloved had always been alive in the memories of her mother; "The "click" is
something recalled because Sethe had already pre-created Beloved as well as her place in the
world, and only now when she no longer has even to speak words can the join truly
begin"(Marks 93). One can view that Sethe was responsible of Beloved coming back to life. It is
understandable that Beloved felt her mother accusing herself because she killed her daughter.
Also, she knew that her mother missed her, so she decided to come back.
Conclusion
The era during which the story of the novel takes place has greatly affected Toni Morrison. She
lived those times through what her grandparents told her. The narratives she has been told were
part of her heritage and the source of influence for her. One can say that slavery is one of the
major topics that African American literature deals with. Beloved is a story that offers hints and
images about life during and after slavery. Slavery’s horrors had a psychological impact upon the
female characters of the novel. One can say that Sethe’s mental troubles came from her past.
Sethe had psychological troubles due to her life in slavery. She also hurt Denver’s psyche by
letting her imagine how slavery hurts. But for Beloved it is not the same. She experienced the
terrors of slavery by herself, and the result was that she lost her life.
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