Cruelty In Toni Morrison's Beloved
Cruelty and Beloved
On Monday 28th, 1856, a runaway slave by the name of Margaret Garner took the life of her two year old daughter, attempting to also do so with her other three children, in an effort to keep her family from the horrors of human slavery. Over a century later, the story is retold through fictional characters in Beloved. Through the release of the contemporary novel, Toni
Morrison shows how the circulation of cruelty exposed to people conjures the inhumanities in society. Using the experiences of a former slave named Sethe and her prior slave owner
Schoolteacher, Morrison suggests that mental damage inflicted onto a person through cruelty or cruelty inflicted by a person renders both parties dehumanized.
Like the name suggests, Schoolteacher is depicted …show more content…
With 124 being haunted by the ghost of her baby, and then being physically tormented by Beloved after the arrival of Paul D, Sethe is constantly questioning the justification of murder of her daughter, subconsciously feeling guilt when she falls under the illusion that
Beloved is potentially her daughter reincarnated. Upon hearing the story of Beloved’s murder,
Paul D responds with, “You got two legs Sethe, not four,” before leaving Sethe in 124 to contemplate the words. With her mind on the past slowly consuming her thoughts, Sethe slowly drains the life out of herself as her trauma causes her to feel less and less human.
As the cycle of cruelty and hatred continues, all participants grow less human with every interaction that occurs. In an alternate reality where Schoolteacher was not a slave owner, the
13th Amendment was passed, and Sethe was not a slave, it is possible that Sethe would not be pushed into the notion of murdering her children to escape slavery. In this reality it would also
On Monday 28th, 1856, a runaway slave by the name of Margaret Garner took the life of her two year old daughter, attempting to also do so with her other three children, in an effort to keep her family from the horrors of human slavery. Over a century later, the story is retold through fictional characters in Beloved. Through the release of the contemporary novel, Toni
Morrison shows how the circulation of cruelty exposed to people conjures the inhumanities in society. Using the experiences of a former slave named Sethe and her prior slave owner
Schoolteacher, Morrison suggests that mental damage inflicted onto a person through cruelty or cruelty inflicted by a person renders both parties dehumanized.
Like the name suggests, Schoolteacher is depicted …show more content…
With 124 being haunted by the ghost of her baby, and then being physically tormented by Beloved after the arrival of Paul D, Sethe is constantly questioning the justification of murder of her daughter, subconsciously feeling guilt when she falls under the illusion that
Beloved is potentially her daughter reincarnated. Upon hearing the story of Beloved’s murder,
Paul D responds with, “You got two legs Sethe, not four,” before leaving Sethe in 124 to contemplate the words. With her mind on the past slowly consuming her thoughts, Sethe slowly drains the life out of herself as her trauma causes her to feel less and less human.
As the cycle of cruelty and hatred continues, all participants grow less human with every interaction that occurs. In an alternate reality where Schoolteacher was not a slave owner, the
13th Amendment was passed, and Sethe was not a slave, it is possible that Sethe would not be pushed into the notion of murdering her children to escape slavery. In this reality it would also