Cruelty seems to be contagious throughout society in the eighteen hundreds. With the Institution of Slavery rooted in the South, Blacks were raped, tortured, and killed mercilessly by the Whites. Through these cruel acts of dehumanization we see how each character reacts differently, finding out who the real animals are and who is truly human. Exactly how in her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison shows the reader that when dealing with the Institution of Slavery and the cruelty it inflicted, the “definitions [like animal, savage, and inhuman] belonged to the definers--not the defined.” (Morrison 190).
The Institution of Slavery made Whites think that they were better than the slaves and therefore they were entitled to whatever they wanted from them.
…show more content…
had been all over the South. He was at the heart of slavery, and to get through the misery of slave work, “They killed the flirt whom folks called Life for leading them on. Making them think the next sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of time would do it at last. Only when she was dead would they be safe…Life was dead. Paul D beat her butt all day every day till there was not a whimper in her. Eighty-six days and his hands were still, waiting serenely each rat-rustling night for "Hiiii!" at dawn and the eager clench on the hammer's shaft. Life rolled over dead.” (Morrison 109). Paul D. thought that the only way to escape from the cruelty of slavery was to get rid of his will to live, to stop caring and to just blindly continue on. However, somewhere along the line, Paul D. realized that, "There's a way to put [the wildness] there and there's a way to take it out." (Morrison 71). Paul D. has the choice of whether or not he wants to keep his humanity or become like the rest and be victims to slavery. In the end Paul D. overcomes the Institution of Slavery with his decision to start a future with …show more content…
Sethe keeps thinking about Sweet Home, where Schoolteacher and his nephews thought of her as nothing more than an owned animal, so much so that they brutally gang raped and whipped her. The act traumatized Sethe causing her to freak out and make rash decisions, just like Schoolteacher said a beaten animal would do because, “[If] you beat the hounds past [the point of education]. Never again could you trust them in the woods or anywhere else. You'd be feeding them maybe, holding out a piece of rabbit in your hand, and the animal would revert--bite your hand clean off” (Morrison 149). According to many trauma and abuse symptom websites, Sethe’s fear and panic were completely normal human reactions to the situation she was forced into. The acts of the rape and whipping themselves, along with Schoolteacher and his nephews who performed those acts, were the cruel and animalistic ones, not Sethe herself.
In the eighteen hundreds, enslaved people were thought of as animals, savages, and inhuman, being subjected to dehumanizing treatment from their slave owners. But looking at how the slaves dealt with the cruelty of slavery, they seem more human than the people calling them the animals. It’s no wonder with people like Schoolteacher using the Institution of Slavery as a means to make their treatment of the slaves seem justifiable, we see the slave masters as the real
In Beloved, this incident is the moment that Sethe slits Beloved’s throat when Schoolteacher arrives to take her, and her children, back to Sweet Home. This event triggers most of the novel’s plot, making it both illuminating and inciting. However, there are three important aspects that surround this event. First,
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
Many of the cruel events in the novel stem from slavery and its profit-driving exploits of human beings. In conclusion, Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved reveals the psychological change in those affected by slavery as a result of the cruelty they both face and commit.
During the nineteenth century, America faced what is considered to be one of the most gruesome times in today’s history. Because of slavery in the South and the effects of the Civil War, people in today’s society recognize this time period as one many would avoid discussing. According to Stephen V. Ash, “Southern Slavery was a harsh system —cruel is a better word—that was now and then tampered by acts of kindness on the part of paternalistic whites” (xv). Although there were a small amount of slave owners who were kindhearted, the majority of the South was dominated by slave holders who believed in white supremacy. Ultimately, because many slaves endured extremely callous experiences through forced marriages, repressed education, and revolting living conditions, slave owners were able to create a suppressive atmosphere for slaves during
Sethe’s life as a slave would be known as the ordinary world. She was raised there by other women since her mother was always working in the fields. At age fourteen she was bought by Mr. Garner and moved to Sweethome. At Sweethome Halle and Sethe form a “union” and have four children, Howard, Burglar, Denver and Beloved. When Paul D walked into Sethe’s house for the first time he got an odd feeling and asked Sethe “What kind of evil you got in here?” At dinner that night Denver begins to cry and pleads that she can't stay in this house any longer. Sethe’s call to adventure is when Paul D suggests moving. Sethe instantly rejects this suggestion. This rejections would be Sethe’s refusal of the call.
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.
Throughout Beloved Sethes duplistic character is displayed in the nature of her actions. Shortly after her re-union with Paul D, she describes her reaction to schoolteachers arrival as 'Oh no, I wasn't going back there. I went to jail instead' (P42) These words could be seen that Sethe was. portraying a moral stand by refusing to allow herself and her children to be dragged back into the evil world of slavery....
What is a healthy confusion? Does the work produce a mix of feelings? Curiosity and interest? Pleasure and anxiety? One work comes to mind, Beloved. In the novel, Beloved, Morrison creates a healthy confusion in readers by including the stream of consciousness and developing Beloved as a character to support the theme “one’s past actions and memories may have a significant effect on their future actions”.
OUT OF SIGHT of Mister’s sight, away, praise His name, from the smiling boss of roosters, Paul D began to tremble. Not all at once and not so anyone could tell. When he turned his head, aiming for a last look at Brother, turned it as much as the rope that connected to the axle of a buckboard allowed, and, later on, when they fastened the iron around his ankles and clamped the wrists as well, there was no outward sign of trembling at all. Nor eighteen days after that when he saw the ditches; the one thousand feet of earth—five feet deep, five feet wide, into which wooden boxes had been fitted. A door of bars that you could lift on hinges like a cage opened into three walls and a roof of scrap lumber and red dirt. Two feet of it over his head; three feet of open trench in front of him with anything that crawled or scurried welcome to share that grave calling itself quarters. And there were forty-five more. He was sent there after trying to kill Brandywine, the man schoolteacher sold him to. Brandywine was leading him, in a coffle with ten others, through Kentucky into Virginia. He didn’t know exactly what prompted him to try—other th...
In order to justify keeping an entire race of people enslaved, slaveholders claimed that blacks were inferior to whites, placing them on the same level as livestock and other animals. “There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination” (73). The fact is, whites are not naturally superior over blacks. Therefore, slaveholders used a variety of contrived strategies to make their case that blacks were inherently inferior to whites. To...
Frederick Douglass’ landmark narrative describes the dehumanization of African-American slaves, while simultaneously humanizing them through his moving prose. Douglass shows the dehumanization of slaves through depictions of violence, deindividuation, and the broken justice system. However, Douglass’ pursuit of an education, moving rhetoric, and critique of his own masters demonstrates to the reader that African-Americans are just as intelligent as white people, thus proving their humanity.
In Beloved, Toni Morrison sought to show the reader the interior life of slavery through realism and foreshadowing. In all of her novels, Toni Morrison focused on the interior life of slavery, loss, love, the community, and the supernatural by using realism and vivid language. Morrison had cast a new perspective on the nation’s past and even suggests- though makes no promise- that people of strength and courage may be able to achieve a somewhat less destructive future” (Bakerman 173). Works Cited Bakerman, Jane S.
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.
In Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, Morrison uses universal themes and characters that anyone can relate to today. Set in the 1800s, Beloved is about the destructive effects of American slavery. Most destructive in the novel, however, is the impact of slavery on the human soul. Morrison’s Beloved highlights how slavery contributes to the destruction of one’s identity by examining the importance of community solidarity, as well as the powers and limits of language during the 1860s.
In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison explores the paradoxical nature of love both as a dangerous presence that promises suffering and a life-giving force that gives the strength to proceed; through the experiences of the run-away slave Sethe. The dangerous aspect of love is revealed through the comments of Paul D and Ella regarding the motherly love of Sethe towards her children. Sethe's deep attachment to her children is deemed dangerous due to their social environment which evidently promises that the loved one of a slave will be hurt. On the other hand, love is portrayed as a sustaining force that allows Sethe to move on with her life. All the devastating experiences Sethe endures do not matter due to the fact that she must live for her children. Although dangerous, Sethe's love finally emerges as the prevalent force that allows her to leave the past behind and move on with her life.