Selfish Desire For Sethe In Toni Morrison's Beloved

Sethe’s Selfish Desire For Death

Beloved by Toni Morrison narrates the story of a dysfunctional family, haunted by the ghost and reincarnation of Beloved. Throughout the novel, Sethe, Denver, and Paul D reveal to the reader suppressed memories of their struggles and the effects from the suppression and resurgence of the past. One major event described in the novel is when Sethe murders Beloved in the shed in order to prevent her children from becoming slaves under the Schoolteacher. According to Sigmund Freud's theory, the reasoning behind the Sethe’s actions are the death drive and repetition compulsion. Sethe has this sense of death in order to deal with the traumatic event from when she was a child, spared by her mother during the

She informs the readers that Sethe wishes she could have died with her other siblings because the current life she is living is only filled with anguish and agony. Sethe remembers the story of Nan and her mother during the Middle Passage. According to Nan, Sethe’s mother “threw them all away but you,” (74). Sethe’s siblings are all thrown overboard, murdered. All except Sethe. Nan assures Sethe that she is special to her mother because “[she] put her arms around him. The others she did not,” (74). Her mother loves her father and because of that, Sethe is the only child her mother truly loves. Although this story is to make Sethe grateful for life, she only feels “unimpressed” and “angry,” (74). Sethe is the unlucky child from her mother. All her life, she has been enslaved and nothing good has come out from living. She has only experienced traumatic events, mainly from her time as a slave in Sweet Homes. One of the most disturbing memories Sethe has is when Schoolteacher categorizes the slaves’ characteristics. She happens to be passing by the building and hears that the men are putting “her human characteristics on the left; her animal ones on the right,” (228). Sethe is perturbed as to how her animalistic features are sorted out from her human characteristics. She is not seen to be a human being, but an animal. With her life as a slave, Sethe sees that there is not positive outcome from living. She only experiences pain for Halle goes insane, Sixo is burned alive, Paul A is hanged, Paul D is forced to wear a bit in his mouth, and Sethe is almost whipped to death. Her only wishes are that all these events had never happened and blames her mother for not having thrown her into the sea and causing all these memories. According to Freud, everybody has a death drive within themselves. Currently, Sethe’s death drive is causing her to have this desire of death.