| Product: |
Beloved - Toni Morrison |
| Date: |
12/10/05 (362 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Gripping, thought provoking read
Disadvantages: Disturbing, with graphic, horrific, descriptions involving a hacksaw
How far would you go to protect your children? And in what form would that protection take? Could you live with the consequences of your actions?
Beloved, by Tony Morrison, is often considered an 'ethnic' book. Indeed, I studied it in a course entitled 'Ethnicity in American Literature'. But to me, the book is about motherhood, family, community and pride. But let me back up a little.
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The Story
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This is a VERY complex book, with very complex themes. But the plot is not amazingly difficult to summarise. Morrison got the idea for this book from a newspaper clipping she saw, about an escaping slave who killed her child rather than let the child be recaptured into slavery.
Sethe, mother to a couple of boys and two girls, has done just that. The elder ('already crawling') girl was the victim - Sethe used a hacksaw - nearly sawing her head off. Her tombstone reads simply, 'Beloved'.
The story begins, however, not with the death. Sethe has escaped slavery, and now lives free. Ish. She lived her first years of freedom with her mother-in-law (Baby Suggs), as her husband did not escape Sweet Home. She is not happy. Her boys have fled, and her remaining daughter, Denver, has...well...issues, and is very withdrawn. Paul D, a man whom she new at Sweet Home (where she was a slave), is a welcome arrival to Sethe, and 'marries' her.
Then, on their way home from the fair, they find a young woman sitting in front of the house. She 'speaks funny', and has no memory of anything that had gone before. No memory of a life before the rock on which she sits. She says her name is Beloved. Beloved takes up residence with Sethe, Denver and Paul (although she is immensely jealous of Paul, attempting to seduce him at one stage - possibly to drive a wedge between him and Sethe). Sethe and Beloved embark on a destructive, possessive relationship (and I don't mean a sexual relationship).
The question hangs throughout the book whether Beloved is a real girl, or the ghost of the girl who died. Who will help Sethe, when she cannot or will not ask for help herself? Who will help Denver and Paul? Does Beloved need help? Can Sethe ever be forgiven, or indeed, forgive herself for what she did all those years ago in that shed with that saw?
That all makes it sound like a straightforward (if slightly horrific), ghost story. But besides the horror element, we are also presented with the fact that Sethe is not accepted even within her own community. That no-one in her home is happy. And that pride is a worse crime than murder.
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N B: You don't have to read the analysis below - this was the LAST paper I had to write for my degree (1999), and so made it a personal one. I wrote about what mattered to me.
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The Analysis - pride, prejudice, and murder
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'What she want to go and do that for?'(2) To a parent, Sethe commits the worst possible or imaginable crime, that of infanticide. Yet in Beloved, Sethe murders her 'already crawling' daughter in a particularly horrific manner, yet is still a sympathetic character. Furthermore, the crime for which she is ostracised by her society is not solely, or even primarily, that of murder, but rather of excess: an excess of pride, and an excess of love. However, as a mother myself, I find Sethe's actions difficult to 'forgive', and harder to fully understand. To understand what has shaped Sethe and her community - what has seemingly forced Sethe to such drastic action - it is useful to examine the reactions (and the judgements) of both Sethe herself and those around her. It is also important to explore the role of the family and that of the community in the text and in Sethe's life and to remember that Sethe is not the only character who kills, but she is the only one who kills a child that she, her family and her community regard as her own. I would argue that although Sethe has been forced to endure unspeakable hardship, the murder she commits is horrific, immoral and (at least to an extent) inexcusable, even by the standards of the community depicted in the novel.
The family is the backbone of all known human societies - either ideally or actually: 'all the members of any society are members of some family system(s) (or some simulated family system[s])(3), Sethe, and the other characters in Beloved, are no exception. Although the family is often fractured, and members of a 'family' may or may not be biologically related, the family is still the ideal structure. Cheryl Townsend, paraphrasing Du Bois asserts that even within slavery, 'black people preserved the family in spite of the law'(4) [keeping in mind that slave children belonged to the slave-owner, not to the parents]. Sethe barely knew her mother, and Baby Suggs did not know her mother and barely knew their children, the ideal unit is nevertheless the family unit. Sethe was raised by Nan although she still longed to know her own mother. When Sethe is recounting what little she knows of her mother: the 'brand' on her skin, she says, '[a]ll I could think of was how important this was...[Sethe asks her mother] "but how will you know me?" Baby Suggs wonders,"...could she have been a loving mother? If my mother knew me, would she like me?"
We therefore see that it is not only the family that is the ideal structure, but the mother is the focal point for the rearing of young children, both in societies at large and in Beloved, despite the appalling conditions that the ex-slaves are living under and have experienced. There is still an expectation that mothers (or mother substitutes) will care for and protect their children. Dr Levy maintains, 'the initial inculcation of family patterns on infants and very young children is *always and everywhere* ideally and/or actually carried out by mothers.'(5) (emphasis mine.) Because of the emphasis and 'idealness' of the maternal role in child-rearing, Sethe's actions are considered abhorrent and they set her out as the 'other', (6) against the non-murderous 'norm' in her community. Denver articulates the isolation the family experiences, complaining, "nobody speaks to us. Nobody comes by. Boys don't like me. Girls don't either...it's not the house. It's us! And it's you!'"
It is important to note, however, that Sethe is not the only character in Beloved whom we are told has killed infants. Nan tells 'small girl Sethe' that Sethe's mother 'threw them all away but you...the ones...from more white she...threw away. Without names, she threw them.' The unnamed infants, though, do not seem to 'count'. They were products of rape by the whites and are therefore somehow not considered a part of the ideal family, nor do they seem to be seen by Nan and Sethe's (also nameless, at least to the reader) mother as fully human.
Sethe's 'already crawling' daughter, conversely, is considered by the society in which Sethe lives, as a part of a family; as a child who requires protection and nurturing. Sethe's societies (despite the conditions, as mentioned previously) still expect a certain standard of behaviour from the mother figure. When Sethe confounds those expectations by killing her (again, nameless) daughter, her society shuns her. However, Sethe's society is not hostile towards Sethe solely, or even primarily, for the crime of infanticide. Her reasons are understood by the African American society depicted in Beloved, even if her reactions are considered extreme. Instead, Sethe stands accused of excess: an excess of pride, an excess of love, and an excess of action. Ella, for example:
"...understood Sethe's rage in the shed twenty years ago, but not her reaction to it, which Ella thought was prideful, misdirected and Sethe herself too complicated. When she got out of jail and made no gesture toward anybody, and lived as though she were alone, Ella junked her and wouldn't give her the time of day... Sethe's crime was staggering and her pride outstripped even that..."
Ella, and the rest of Sethe's community, have also experienced the horrors and indignities of slavery, and do understand the need to escape and to stay free.(7) However, Sethe experiences everything, and reacts to everything to excess. She 'talked about safety with a handsaw.' Paul D tells her, '[y]our love is too thick' The townspeople resent Sethe and the family for their (perceived) excess of pride even before the murder takes place. They had 'offended...by excess.' They do not seem (in the community's eyes) to be showing the humility that should be a result of their suffering. The town even eventually resents Baby Suggs for being freed, rather than escaping from bondage.
The black community condemns Sethe for her excess of thought and deed, but they do (to a point) understand at least part of it. The 'four horseman' understand nothing at all:
"What she go and do that for? On account of a beating? Hell, he'd been beat a million times and he was white...no beating ever made him...I mean no way he could have...What she go and do that for?"
The nephew cannot understand the extremes Sethe is willing to go to avoid being re-enslaved, for although he had been beaten before, and did not like it at the time, he was still a free man and had the ability to take his anger and humiliation out on something smaller and less powerful than he, like the well bucket or the dog. Sethe (and any other slaves) have no such luxury. Furthermore, the nephew is missing the point, since he can both regard himself, and is regarding as human. Sethe is not driven to extremes by a simple beating, but by the constant humiliation (such as the forced suckling) she and her children have had to endure and would have to again if they were re-captured. To the Schoolteacher, Sethe was not fully human, but rather a 'mishandled creature'. The four horsemen cannot, therefore, even begin to imagine the desperation that drove Sethe. Furthermore, they can neither forgive nor condemn her because she is, in their eyes, a creature. One does not condemn nor forgive a lion for killing his rival's offspring. To the Schoolteacher and his party, Sethe and her kind are no more than that.
Sethe is, of course, not simply a creature, and is not viewed as such by her own community. Her peers cannot forgive Sethe until she requires help. In order to accept help, she must relinquish her pride. Initially, Denver symbolically does this for her, by overtly asking for help. The attitude of Sethe's society then softens from condemnation to a degree of understanding: '"You can't just up and kill you children." "No, and the children can't just up and kill the mama."' The town unites to save Sethe (and by association, Denver) from the personification of her own guilt, Beloved. Afterwards, they begin to accept Denver back into the community as an independent adult (therefore no longer associated with the guilt and pride of her mother), but still find Sethe strange, at the very least, '...Damn. That woman is crazy. Crazy.' However, even the town is beginning to acknowledge that Sethe is not alone in a kind of madness: 'Yeah, well ain't we all?' Sethe's crime of infanticide and the 'punishment' she suffers at the hand of Beloved has become 'a story [not] to pass on'.
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EPILOGU E - A PERSONAL VIEW
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I am a mother. I have a daughter whom I adore, and I try to protect her from humiliation and harm. I hope fervently that she is never threatened with enslavement and the ritual humiliation and suffering that accompanies it. However, I would save her life at the expense of mine if I were faced with such a horrific choice. Perhaps I am quick to judge Sethe's actions in Beloved. I do not, for example, feel as repulsed by the implied murder of Sethe's siblings (8) (as unpleasant as that is) as I do about 'Beloved's' murder. Perhaps part of the reason for the difference in degree is the fact that the 'already crawling' girl's murder is described in vivid and horrific detail. I can almost hear the screams and feel the child's pain (OK, so I'm a bit theatrical at times). The point is, the child's murder is considered immoral (although interestingly, it is never condemned as sinful - the word sin is not mentioned in connection with the murder) even by the society in which Sethe lives. Sethe's children were indeed spared the horrors of slavery by Sethe's actions, but the child is dead, the boys have disappeared, Denver has completely retreated into herself and Sethe is consumed by the past. Sethe had indeed won a Pyrric victory.
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REFERENCES AND FOOTNOTES
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(1) (TITLE of essay) Marlowe, C (1991) Dr Faustus: The A Text edited by Ormerod D & Wortham C Nedlands, Western Austrialia University of Western Australia Press line 308
(2) Morrison, T (1987) Beloved (Large Print edition) Thorndike, Maine USA, Thorndike Press. pg 261 All page numbers refer to this text.
(3) Levy MJ (1992) Maternal Influence - The Search for Social Universals New Brunswick, NJ Transaction Publishers pg 18
(4) Gilkes, CT 'The Margin as a Centre of a Theory of History' refering to Du Bois WEB Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1920; reprint, New York: Schocken Books, 1969)
(5) ibid. pg 45
(6) Ferguson R (1998) Representing 'Race' Ideology, Identity and the Media London, Arnold pg 68
(7) Baby Suggs, for example, did not understand that freedom was something to be relished until she herself experienced it. (pg 246)
(8) Not wishing to open a can of worms, I will avoid the implications of those murders on the modern-day abortion issue
Summary: A grim, at times issued based book which you nevertheless remember always.
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