Pain can be described as feeling hurt by something or someone. The suffering can be everlasting, short, physically, or mentally. Kristin Boudreau’s article, Pain and the Unmaking of Self in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, depicts how pain can be channeled throughout people’s life. This pain can also lead to suffering to not only themselves, but everyone. Carl Jung’s archetypes can be expressed through many events in Beloved. These two words demonstrate the lives and events that these characters had been thorugh. In Beloved, Morrison writes about pain and suffering, which is shown with the characters Sethe, Paul D, Ella, and Sixo. For Sethe, living through pain is easier said than done. She suffered times of pain when escaping Sweet Home, the plantation. …show more content…
Sixo has many events that gives him the archetype of a “the shadow” and “the trickster” (“Jung’s Archetypes”).He was one with nature and knew how to do certain things better than anyone. While living at Sweet Home, Sixo’s pain and suffering came in many ways at different times. Part of his pain was travelling thirty four miles to meet his wife name Patsy. This pain was brought upon him because he had to stab his wife’s leg in order to deceive others that she got hurt (Morrison 47-48). This part of his pain was being a shadow towards his wife and Sweet Home. He was a shadow towards his wife because he had decided to stab his pregnant wife in the leg and hurt her. His shadow took control because he needed her to have “an excuse for not being on time” (Morrison 48). The pain that he had gone through was seeing his wife for a short moment only to go back on the road and head back to the plantation. As the wild man of the group, he would be quiet and never speak around the guys at Sweet Home. If he did, it would be something quick and go right back to silence. Along being the shadow, he was the trickster because of him always being gone at any point and time. These times consisted of finding places to meet up with his girlfriend and talking to spirits. Even though Sixo is a wild man, he is still a slave that has pain and suffering in his life. The pain and suffering of his life was being burn alived by schoolteacher. Even though he was burning, Sixo was laughing and speaking to his wife and future child. The pain he had felt was excruciating and death defying. According to Schoolteacher, Sixo was considered a threat and a rebellious slave. Sixo “has a disregard for the system of slavery” and tries to escape the plantation (Morrison 219). As for punishment, they sent him to death. In the end, Sixo “could bear the things that we normally cannot bear” because he was different from the rest of the men at Sweet
can be just as painful for Sethe. All in all the life of a slave is
Sethe is the most dramatically haunted in the book. She is the one who was beaten so badly her back is permanently scarred. She is the one who lived and escaped slavery. She is the one who murdered her child rather than return it to
Toni Morrisons novel 'Beloved' demonstrates how the African American people, oppressed by marginalization and racism, endure the strain of slavery even after they are liberated from it. The establishment of slavery’s horrific dehumanizing, through the estrangement of families and destitution of fundamental human rights is distinctly existent in the novel. Opposite from this setting, Morrison moves us from one location to another; with movements in time through the memories of the central characters. These characters yearn to repress the painful memories of their pasts and are often driven out from a character’s mind or contained securely within; Paul D functions by locking his memories and emotions away in his imagined “tobacco tin”. The case
Trauma: an emotional shock causing lasting and substantial damage to a person’s psychological development. Linda Krumholz in the African American Review claims the book Beloved by Toni Morrison aids the nation in the recovery from our traumatic history that is blemished with unfortunate occurrences like slavery and intolerance. While this grand effect may be true, one thing that is absolute is the lesson this book preaches. Morrison’s basic message she wanted the reader to recognize is that life happens, people get hurt, but to let the negative experiences overshadow the possibility of future good ones is not a good way to live. Morrison warns the reader that sooner or later you will have to choose between letting go of the past or it will forcibly overwhelm you. In order to cement to the reader the importance of accepting one’s personal history, Morrison uses the tale of former slave Sethe to show the danger of not only holding on to the past, but to also deny the existence and weight of the psychological trauma it poses to a person’s psyche. She does this by using characters and their actions to symbolize the past and acceptance of its existence and content.
‘“Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.’ Sethe shook her head. 'Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part’” (Morrison 8). Paul D questions the absence of Baby Suggs as he and Sethe sit on the front porch of 124. In the early pages of Toni Morrison’s book, Beloved, the theme of mercy is immediately present and stressed. The characters of Beloved live with the traumatic effects of living through slavery, and the value of life terrorizes their subconscious. The epicenter of Morrison’s book is Sethe killing her daughter out of love and mercy. Mercy is a powerful motive that drives human instinct, especially that of a mother’s psyche. Exploring this concept, Sethe’s actions were extreme, but not unique. They were actually explainable and even defendable.
Toni Morrison's novel, Beloved, reveals the effects of human emotion and its power to cast an individual into a struggle against him or herself. In the beginning of the novel, the reader sees the main character, Sethe, as a woman who is resigned to her desolate life and isolates herself from all those around her. Yet, she was once a woman full of feeling: she had loved her husband Halle, loved her four young children, and loved the days of the Clearing. And thus, Sethe was jaded when she began her life at 124 Bluestone Road-- she had loved too much. After failing to 'save' her children from the schoolteacher, Sethe suffered forever with guilt and regret. Guilt for having killed her "crawling already?" baby daughter, and then regret for not having succeeded in her task. It later becomes apparent that Sethe's tragic past, her chokecherry tree, was the reason why she lived a life of isolation. Beloved, who shares with Seths that one fatal moment, reacts to it in a completely different way; because of her obsessive and vengeful love, she haunts Sethe's house and fights the forces of death, only to come back in an attempt to take her mother's life. Through her usage of symbolism, Morrison exposes the internal conflicts that encumber her characters. By contrasting those individuals, she shows tragedy in the human condition. Both Sethe and Beloved suffer the devastating emotional effects of that one fateful event: while the guilty mother who lived refuses to passionately love again, the daughter who was betrayed fights heaven and hell- in the name of love- just to live again.
In preventing her child from going into slavery, Sethe, too, protected herself; she prevented herself from re-entering captivity. In examining Sethe’s character, we can see that her motivations derive from her deep love towards her children, and from the lack of love for herself. Sethe’s children are her only good quality. Her children are a part of her and in killing one she kills a part of herself.... ...
Whenever they felt grief, like the death of a loved one, these women would take a nail and drive it into the pain tree to get rid of their burden Larissa and other migrant workers used the pain tree as an outlet for pain and grief. The pain tree held the burdens of many migrant workers like Larissa and provided a steady outlet no matter what happened. When Lorraine was young, she could not make the nail go into the pain tree, which shows that at the time she did not feel the anger and burdens of women like Larissa. Lorraine’s inability to hit the nail into the pain tree marked the only time Lorraine felt uncomfortable with Larissa because of their cultural divide. The last time Lorraine visited the pain tree, she was able to hit the nail into the tree easily, which represents the anger and sadness she feels for Larissa and the pain Larissa had to
In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, love proves to be a dangerous and destructive force. Upon learning that Sethe killed her daughter, Beloved, Paul D warns Sethe “Your love is too thick” (193). Morrison proved this statement to be true, as Sethe’s intense passion for her children lead to the loss of her grasp on reality. Each word Morrison chose is deliberate, and each sentence is structured with meaning, which is especially evident in Paul D’s warning to Sethe. Morrison’s use of the phrase “too thick”, along with her short yet powerful sentence structure make this sentence the most prevalent and important in her novel. This sentence supports Paul D’s side on the bitter debate between Sethe and he regarding the theme of love. While Sethe asserts that the only way to love is to do so passionately, Paul D cites the danger in slaves loving too much. Morrison uses a metaphor comparing Paul D’s capacity to love to a tobacco tin rusted shut. This metaphor demonstrates how Paul D views love in a descriptive manner, its imagery allowing the reader to visualize and thus understand Paul D’s point of view. In this debate, Paul D proves to be right in that Sethe’s strong love eventually hurts her, yet Paul D ends up unable to survive alone. Thus, Morrison argues that love is necessary to the human condition, yet it is destructive and consuming in nature. She does so through the powerful diction and short syntax in Paul D’s warning, her use of the theme love, and a metaphor for Paul D’s heart.
Abuse, rape, humiliation, embarrassment, assault and all of the other things that came with slavery scarred and scared Sethe so bad that once she was freed she attempted to kill all four of her children, because she was so afraid that they would have to live a life in slavery like she did (Heffernan). When Sethe was a slave the Schoolteacher’s nephews held Sethe down and stole her breast milk, like she was a cow. Sethe was taken away from her mother at a very young age and she doesn’t remember her at all, many other families were broken up the same way also (Spargo). There were slaves owners who were kind to slaves at times, like Mr. and Mrs. Garner who would be nice until they got behind closed doors there they would treat their slaves as if they were wild animals that were trying to invade their property.
Cruelty is the idea of gaining pleasures in harming others and back in 1873, many African American slaves suffered from this common ideology according Heather Andrea Williams of National Humanities Center Fello. Toni Morrison, an African American author who illustrates an opportunity for “readers to be kidnapped, thrown ruthlessly into an alien environment...without preparations or defense” (Morrison) in her award-winning novel Beloved as method to present how cruel slavery was for African Americans. In her fictional story, Beloved, Morrison explained the developement of an African American slave named Sethe who willingly murdered her own child to prevent it from experiencing the cruel fate of slavery. Nonetheless, Morrison
As much as society does not want to admit, violence serves as a form of entertainment. In media today, violence typically has no meaning. Literature, movies, and music, saturated with violence, enter the homes of millions everyday. On the other hand, in Beloved, a novel by Toni Morrison, violence contributes greatly to the overall work. The story takes place during the age of the enslavement of African-Americans for rural labor in plantations. Sethe, the proud and noble protagonist, has suffered a great deal at the hand of schoolteacher. The unfortunate and seemingly inevitable events that occur in her life, fraught with violence and heartache, tug at the reader’s heart-strings. The wrongdoings Sethe endures are significant to the meaning of the novel.
When Sethe chooses to murder her daughter, rather than allowing her to be returned to slavery, she must face the consequences of her actions. Sethe’s murder of Beloved creates an allusion to the biblical character of Cain. According to the Bible’s Old Testament, Cain’s slaughter of Abel marks the first murder ever committed. In the aftermath of Abel’s death, Cain mourns that, “My punishment is greater than I can bear...I shall be a fugitive and wanderer on earth” (English Standard Version, Gen. 4.13-14). Sethe experiences a similar reaction after she takes Beloved’s life. Taken to prison after killing Beloved, Sethe faces ostracism from her community. However, living with the memory of the murder seems a worse fate. Like Cain, the “punishment”, both psychological and physical, that results from her murder is so great that it almost destroys her. Her murder, like Cain’s, violates society’s norms and both opens her to judgment and sets her
How would one feel and behave if every aspects of his or her life is controlled and never settled. The physical and emotional wrought of slavery has a great deal of lasting effect on peoples judgment, going to immense lengths to avoid enslavement. In the novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison uses the characters adversity to expose the real struggles of slavery and the impact it has on oneself and relationships. Vicariously living through the life of Sethe, a former slave who murdered one of her kids to be liberated from the awful life of slavery.
“Violence repeatedly usurps the space that love might hold. Commonly the fantasied antidote to psychic wounds and losses, real and imagined, love is an expected unguent, a form of medication, pain's "natural" anodyne. But Morrison takes a harsher, tougher, less romantic view of love, one fashioned from the accumulated wisdom of the ages, a wisdom infused throughout her novel”. (Mc Dowell)