Close Reading Blog Entry

‘"They used cowhide on you?’ ‘And they took my milk.’ ‘They beat you and you was pregnant?" ‘And they took my milk!"’ (page 20)

Beloved by Toni Morrison have a lot of messages to the world but while focusing on Feminist/Gender lens, some of the important messages that the readers need it to figure out how were women or man portrayed like who had the most power in the book Beloved, the man or woman. Morrison uses imagery and  to show that woman had no power or rights, especially those woman in slavery that were treated really bad.

Sethe during her young time when she was a slave it was really hard for her she was treated really bad like she did not have power  of her self. Sethe is treated like an animal through the imagery that she describe when she says, “They took my milk” (pg.20). When Sethe was pregnant she had milk in her breasts so what men did was they went up to her and take her milk that was saving for the baby. The people that did this to Sethe were owners of the Seth that took her milk this meant Sethe got rape her. she is treated like an animal because usually human when they get milk they get it from a cow but this time this sick white men are taking milk from a woman.This represents how bad woman were treated. The reason this men were doing this and this was not only Sethe it was happening to all women especially at that time men wanted to be treated with power and respect and they got that by hurting woman. As you can see most of  men really did not care about women feeling, they just wanted to show that they are the one with power and woman to feel that they are no one.

In addition Sethe did not just got her milk away but she also got physical abuse based rape. Based through diction, when Sethe was having a conversation with Paul D, Paul ask, ‘“They used cowhide on you”’(pg.20). If you read the full quote Sethe never says cowhide but she admits that she was being abused by a cowhide  when Sethe says, “‘ And they took my milk”’ (pg.20) . When she says this she's admitting it. A cowhide is a whip that is used for animals but in the 1800’s it was used for slaves. As this white man used this special whip to demand they also used it on pregnant woman. Sethe was pregnant when she was getting abused by a cow wiped. This show how men minds work they just technically cared for them self because as they were hitting Sethe they were probably hurting the baby. Now imagine if man did this to all woman they probably kill so baby’s just so that they can show they are the one that have the power and that women are weak.

Men really never care about what a woman was feeling at that time of the story of Beloved was they just wanted to always put woman down not matter on what based on imagery and diction that Morrison used  so that they could feel be scared at man and get respect from them woman. Through this quote it it feels how Sethe really is when she think of this still hurts but at the same time like it really did not matter. Technically this is how women were feeling that they really did not care about them self because they were not safe around man. Even though his feminist/gender lens is about both genders this book can be focused on how female are treated by man with no dignity.