Explore Toni Morrison's presentation of fear in 'Beloved'
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Course
Unit 2 - Prose
Institution
PEARSON (PEARSON)
An essay to highlight the variation within the emotion of fear. The essay focuses on Sethe's, Paul D's, and Beloved's fear with Sethe and Beloved having the fear of losing each other.
Explore Morrison’s presentation of fear in Beloved
Fear is a prevailing emotion which exists amongst all characters and is
portrayed as a constant theme throughout the novel. Variety in fear is
seen since each character’s fear differs from one another depending
on the characters situation, leading to the exhaustion of this theme
being avoided.
Fear in Sethe, whether she is fearful or fearless, dominates the entire
novel and this sense of fear resonates the most on page 175 where
Toni Morrison writes of her having “simply swung the baby toward
the wall planks.” This is a horrific image that not only creates fear
amongst the readers, but furthermore disturbingly highlights the
terrifying, inhumane mental state of Sethe which has arisen due to the
fear of her children being forced to live a life as traumatic as her own
was in slavery. “Simply swung” is apt is providing a feeling of shock as
the reader realises Morrison has used such casual language to
describe the killing of Beloved; the use of sibilance is impactful in
drawing the attention of the supposed chilling callousness of the
white’s views and somewhat of Sethe too. This transition into the
white narrative viewpoint is also captivating as the it leads to the 80s
readers questioning the indifferent outlook the white’s had on murder
and foul treatment, due to the detached language almost resulting in
a comparison of the baby to an object. This is fitting as the idea of the
white’s objectifying humans was common in slavery and this was a
thought Morrison would have tried to reveal, as well as the casual
racism that was apparent in American during the 1980s. By painting
Sethe in this episode in a manner that appears to be unlike her, this
serves to portray complete fear within her which drives her to
insanity. This outlines Morrisons overarching purpose of drawing out
the horrors of slavery as with this powerfully conveying the extremes
slaves may go purely to save their children from the terrors they had
encountered as they fear they may have to suffer the same pain. It is
clear that this idea is shown throughout the novel as on page 295
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