Slavery Quotes From Beloved

Harriet Ann Jacobs once said, “Death is better than slavery,” ("Harriet Ann Jacobs Quotes.”). Toni Morrison’s character Beloved, from the book Beloved, represents slavery and she does this by forcing freed slaves to deal with their pasts. Beloved is a character that affects people, including Sethe and Paul D. Beloved only affects people who have been through slavery, in different ways. She affects Sethe the most. A few weeks after Sethe had escaped to freedom, she was faced with a tough choice. When she saw that schoolteacher and a few others had come to take her and her children back to slavery, Sethe was so terrified that she did something drastic (149). Seth decided to kill her children and commit suicide, but in the end, she was only

She said, “I took my babies where they’d be safe” (164). This traumatizes Sethe, she wishes she didn’t kill the already walking? baby, saying, “When I put that headstone up I wanted to lay in there with you, put your head on my shoulder and keep you warm,” (204). When Sethe starts to see Beloved as the child she has lost, she desperately tries to make up for everything she has done. The narrator describes this change by saying, “At first they played together, A whole month,” and “Denver began to drift from the play, but she watched it, alert for any sign that Beloved was in danger. Finally convinced there was none, and seeing her mother that happy, that smiling— how could it go wrong?—she let down her guard and it did,” (240). At this point, Sethe gives into Beloved’s every whim and demand, even at the cost of her own safety and well being

Paul D had been living with his tobacco tin sealed up tight when he arrived at 124. Paul D’s tobacco tin burst open when he was raped by Beloved (117). When he finds out what Sethe did to her children, it becomes too much for him and he leaves (165). Paul D is staying in the town’s church when the narrator says, “His tobacco tin, blown open, spilled contents floated freely and made hi their play and prey” (218). At this point, Paul D is dealing with his issues by drinking, and it isn’t until Stamp Paid comes to talk to him that he deals with his issues (235). After Beloved disappears, Paul D goes to see Sethe. This is where he realizes that Sethe can help him heal, just as he can help Sethe heal. He says, “Her tenderness about his neck jewelry—its three wands, like attentive baby rattlers, curving two feet into the air. How she never mentioned or looked at it, so he did not have to feel the shame of being collard like a beast. Only this woman Sethe could have left him his manhood like that,”