Motherhood or Slavery?

The article I read was “Slavery and Motherhood in Toni Morrison's Beloved” by Terry Paul Caesar. The main argument in the article was that being a mother is like slavery because you belong to your children. I somewhat agree with this point because mothers cater to their children and put them before everyone else. Which was what the slave owners wanted from their slaves. Mothers are also the most loyal person to their kids, as well as slaves to their owners. Slaves and their owners don't have a positive relationship similar to Sethe and her offsprings.

The author of the article brings up the point that the book was based more on motherhood than slavery. I agree with this because even though Beloved has a great amount of references to slavery it was more focused on the relationship between Sethe and her children including Beloved. Sethe and Beloved were never able to have an actual mother daughter connection. The school teacher came with other men to try and take Sethe and her kids “Inside, two boys bled in the sawdust and dirt at the feet of a nigger women holding a blood-soaked child to her chest with one hand and an infant by the heels in the other”(Morrison 175). The action Sethe took will haunt her forever and also affect her children that survived. Sethe's love for her children made her make impulsive decisions. Although Beloved dies Sethe lost her self respect and worth, the townspeople viewed her differently after that as well. Sethe ruins Denver's life in addition because she is not allowed to go to school or go outside her house due to that too.  When Denver find out that Sethe killed Beloved as infant she develops fear for her mother. Denver is scared that Sethe will get in that mindset and kill her too. Sethe committed a tragedy like many slaves owners do. The cards flipped now Sethe seems like the slave owner and her children are the slaves.

Another point the author discusses in the article is that Sethe did not have “enough milk for her children” in reality meaning love. The reason why is because she is so scar with the trauma she has from being a past slave. Sethe's version of love for her children is killing them to help them not live the painful experience of being a slave. Even though most people argue that Sethe's was wrong for doing this it could be justified. Later Paul D asks Sethe to have a child together but Sethe quickly declines the offer because she cannot go through the process of having kids because it's like being in slavery. Sethe did not only suffered for being a slave but also a mother.

Critical Lens Experts Blog Entry

Text: Figurations of Rape and the Supernatural in Beloved

Critical Lens: Feminism Lens

Beloved

Slavery was known as a historical period filled with horror and pain for thousands of slaves around the world. Specifically looking at the United States, there were thousands of slaves that endured poor working and living conditions on a daily basis. Majority of slaves that were forcefully shipped to the United States, they didn't do it out of seeking a better life for fambam, they did it because they had no choice. the US made them slaves no matter what their choice was. It wasn't to help their family.Slaves endured lots of trauma either being mental, physical, or emotional and often led them to remain silent in order to forget the trauma they faced when working in the plantations. To understand slavery in a deeper level, each country had their own policies regarding  slavery. For instance, in the United States, each state enforced different policies regarding to slavery such as the amount of slaves each person should have, their age requirements, and plantation size limits for each slave owner. If most slave owners disobeyed state policies, they wouldn’t have their property taken away however each will have less slaves working in their plantations.

Ending Slavery

When reading Pamela E. Barnett’s article, Figurations of Rape and the Supernatural in Beloved, she explains controversial issues involving the divisions towards race, gender, and the social class during the mid 1800s early 1900s. Taking a closer glimpse Pamela E. Barnett, she is an English professor at Emory University and has knowledge of various books and the different perspectives that are shown in those books. Knowing that Barnett is an English professor, she manages to acknowledge various perspectives of novels like Beloved which helps students and readers fully understand a book. Racial, gender and social divisions that happened in the novel were the whites had more power over the African Americans during slavery. The African Americans would be very cautious around the whites, but would fight back in any possible way.

Recalling the article, Barnett also explains how a person’s conflicts between a person, society, and past events can affect you when someone comes into your life and does not only cause a negative change but also helps reveal the truth of what a person is capable of doing through their actions. Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, there are several conflicts shown with other characters such as Beloved, Sethe, Paul D, and American society. For example, looking at Beloved’s character, she was illustrated as a haunted baby ghost who manages to make other characters remember their past causing them to think of events they wish had never occurred like Sethe killed Beloved or Paul D to remember his past and what he did. Beloved disappears but no one knew where she was was later found at a farm. Beloved manages to come back in the novel by walking out of the water, a symbol that she was reborn. She comes back to haunt everyone because of her mother's actions towards her, killing her at an young age due to protection and purity.

Critical Lens Experts Blog Entry

Toni Morrison exquisitely writes Beloved in a way that presents a unique way of portraying motherhood. Many have tried to understand her work and have written academic articles analyzing the different themes they encounter through certain lenses. One article titled “Slavery and Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’” crafted by Terry Paul Caesar goes into depth about this connection in the book. The article goes into detail about the possible theme of Beloved where motherhood and slavery are interchangeable. This article similarly relates to another theme of how the idea of motherhood is an unbreakable bond that takes precedence over everything else.  

Caesar sheds light on how being a mother and the categorizations of slavery intertwine. Many times throughout the book Sethe calls her daughters “mine” making them her own possession. In times of slavery, slaves were the possession of their white master. Commonly, mothers see a piece of themselves in their daughters or sons. An incident in the book when Schoolteacher had showed up to reclaim Sethe and force her back into slavery provoked Sethe to commit infanticide to her daughter. Caesar mentions that when experiencing motherhood and slavery, individuals learn, “what it means to have a self and to give that self away.” She killed a miniature piece of herself to prevent her daughter from the horrors of slavery. She had no option, but to kill her own daughter, or in other words give a part of her away by force, due to Schoolteacher’s return. As a slave, one must give themselves away as a person by force as well. Slaves are not people, rather property. In both instances, motherhood and slavery, one must rid a portion or all of their identity. Here the idea that motherhood and slavery are complementary is proven through different examples throughout the book.

A theme I uncovered through my disciplined analysis of feminism while reading Beloved is how there is a strong bond between a mother and her child and how that is of more importance than other issues or relationships. An event that reflects this theme in the book is when Sethe starts showing up late and then gets fired from her job. She began to show up late because she wanted to spend quality time with Beloved after she realized it was her daughter who had risen from the dead. She prioritizes her relationship with her daughter over a rare job experience she had been offered as a former slave. Sethe values her time spent with Beloved more than an income to support her family. Another example of this theme in the text is how Sethe verbally defends her other daughter Denver to Paul D. As analyzed in the close reading blog previously posted, she puts her relationship with Paul D in jeopardy to defend Denver’s reputation. Her love is labeled as “too thick” for her children.

The theme I came to a conclusion with and the article’s theme are similar, yet they both yield some differences. Some similarities of the two themes is that each examines an aspect of motherhood. They each represent the idea that motherhood is powerful in their own ways. Each theme identifies that there are also negative qualities to motherhood as well. Also, both of our themes are viewed through the feminist lens. The differences between these themes is that one compares an infamous time period in US history to the act of being a mother. Motherhood typically has a positive connotation, but instead, Caesar compares it to the horrific time period of slavery in the US. The theme I identified in the text portrays motherhood in a more positive aspect than the theme in the article Caesar wrote. I viewed the theme through different stories in the book on how motherhood is an unbreakable bond.