Introduction
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a famous and exciting novel addressing a few essential themes. For example, the literary piece addresses the topics of love, slavery, masculinity, and the supernatural. The author managed to focus on the life of the protagonist, Sethe, to demonstrate what challenges people experienced after the American Civil War. Morrison considered formerly enslaved individuals to show that the abolishment of slavery did not bring prosperity and success.
Novel Analysis
One of the most prominent parts of the novel refers to the fact that Sethe voluntarily killed one of her children. Even though it is challenging to believe in it, the protagonist relies on a good reason to justify her decision. Thus, a careful analysis of the novel reveals that Sethe’s act of killing her child emphasizes the significant desperation of enslaved mothers and represents an unusual form of sacrifice and maternal love.
To begin with, one should explain that Sethe killed her child to protect her from the horrors of slavery. As the protagonist talked about her dead daughter, “She had to be safe, and I put her where she would be” (Morrison 383). In particular, Sethe committed this crime to ensure that slave catchers would not have the child. The woman took this dehumanizing action because she was sure that it was better to be dead than enslaved.
The author skillfully demonstrates that women of that time were forced to make fateful decisions regarding their children’s lives. As Sethe mentioned about her children, “It’s my job to know what is and to keep them away from what I know is terrible” (Morrison 315). Thus, as an enslaved person, Sethe perfectly understood how challenging and dangerous life would be for her children. This desperation made her kill her child when she understood that it was impossible to save her.
In addition to that, Sethe’s murder of her child challenges the traditional forms of maternal love. As a rule, a mother is a person who never hurts and always does good for her children. Sethe is not suitable for this description because she killed her child. However, Sethe regrets because of that decision, and she states that the deceased daughter “was my best thing” (Morrison 520).
This description makes it possible to describe Sethe’s misbehavior as self-sacrifice. When she understood that significant dangers threatened her child, Sethe decided to take responsibility to prevent this pessimistic scenario. It seems that the protagonist could prevent what terrible remorse she would appear, but this fact did not stop her. The protagonist loved her child too much, which made her commit this bold action and suffer all the consequences for the rest of her life.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a valuable and thought-provoking literary piece. The novel focuses on a negative fact, the killing of a child, and offers unexpected justification. On the one hand, Sethe committed murder because she wanted to protect her daughter from the horrors of slavery.
On the other hand, that tragedy was a form of maternal love because the protagonist decided to make a self-sacrifice. She accepted suffering from remorse for her entire life to ensure that her daughter would escape slavery and associated scares. Thus, the analysis has demonstrated that Morrison relied on Sethe’s act of killing her child to comment on the topics of slavery and motherhood.
Work Cited
Morrison, Tony. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.