Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
sexism in literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: sexism in literature
Beloved Issues of Sexuality
The story “Beloved” offers many interpretations for analysis however, Toni Morrison particularly makes note of how slavery plays a role in sexuality discrepancies with Sethe and her problem with femininity as well as Paul D’s issue with masculinity.
Both of the character’s situations differ from one another. For example, Slavery has emasculated Paul D, taking away his manhood and disabling him from making his own decisions. On the other hand, Sethe’s traumatic experience with School teacher has taken away her sense of femininity. This has led her to lose maternal awareness ideally causing her to adopt masculine survival instincts.
First, Paul D’s Issues can be analyzed through his life at sweet home. Although former owner Mr. Garner thought of his slaves as men, Paul D became emasculated after his knowledge of the title being a slave. From the start, Paul D thought of himself as a man only if his owner assigned him the title; he could not have the title as a man based on his own actions, especially in a society that views blacks as animals or children. As stated by Deborah Ayer (Sitter), “Morrison dramatizes Paul D’s enslavement to an ideal of manhood that distorts his images of self and others” (191). This means that Paul D is not only trapped by the white slave owners, but he is also trapped by is internal thoughts of his own manhood. Paul D chains himself to the idea of freedom and opportunity to become a man, that he allows the two to own him in a sense. Paul D is shown to possess certain criteria. In his mind, men do not show emotion, a man is the protector and a man has the last word. Although Paul D believes in these three topics, he does not own up to them. Paul D goes as far as showing char...
... middle of paper ...
...hoolteacher once again coming to take Beloved. She attacks him with an icepick, something a man would typically do. She is essentially going to kill the threat rather than the threatened. This is also a masculine act. For example, men are usually the problem solvers and by Sethe attempting to kill the problem, she takes over the male role.
In conclusion, slavery has broken both characters roles of sexuality. Paul D struggles in terms of finding his manhood after being emasculated by his master. He runs away from his problems and is sensitive to things that a woman would endure. Sethe too struggles with events brought on by her master. She feels the need to handle things that are essentially a man’s job. She takes over the house and becomes the person who carries the weight. Slavery has changed these people and by the symbolic death of beloved toward the end of the
"Paul's Case" is clearly product of the influences of a patriarchal society. Women are not allowed a prominent role in any part of the story, which is evidence of the influential patriarchal society's oppression of women. When women are actually mentioned in the story, it is in a stereotypical and/or demeaning manner. Although the gender of the narrator is not discernible, this story was written by a woman who's views were heavily effected by the opinions of the society in which she lived, which is apparent through the actions, views, and attitudes of her characters.
She dreams of a better future with Paul D when she is at 124 Bluestone Road but is still challenged with letting go of her past. In fact, the address of the house is an excellent example of Sethe’s inability to let go of her past. She has to overcome the fact that she killed her third child brutally every day and everyone shunning her does not help her cope with the problem. Furthermore, she intended to kill all her children because she was afraid of the possible things schoolteacher would have done to her children such as whipping. Also, every time milk pops up in Sethe's mind, she always concerns herself about how the two nephews of schoolteacher stole her milk. Another notable example of Sethe’s unrelenting past is the haunted house. Sethe is forced to deal with the anger of the haunting house while also having to be responsible for the downfall of her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, as well as for Beloved. A relatively straightforward and relevant example of Sethe’s history with slavery is the arrival of Paul D after eighteen years. With the arrival of Paul D, Sethe is reminded even more of the horrific experiences with schoolteacher. Sethe’s environment and surroundings can change all they want or stay the same, but her experiences with the horrors of slavery will continue to be on her mind until she dies. Sethe even admits that she
When Paul D, Denver, and Sethe were walking back from the fair and their “three shadows...shot out of their feet to… [their] hands. Nobody noticed but Sethe, and she stopped looking after she decided that it was a good sign. A life. Could be” (Morrison 47). Through the use of light as a symbol, Morrison reinforces the idea that happiness and achievement came at a time least expected, yet most crucial. Sethe believes that avoiding her painful past may be the best present option, but acknowledges that she cannot hide from it forever. For the time being Sethe chooses instant gratification “to Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay. The 'better life'… she and Denver were living was better simply because it was not the other one” (Morrison 51). Morrison argues that through all of the agony of slavery, there is hope for the future. Despite the Darkness that may engulf a person, there is always a Light within reach. Arguably this is what makes life worth living – the hope for something
From the beginning, Beloved focuses on the import of memory and history. Sethe struggles daily with the haunting legacy of slavery, in the form of her threatening memories and also in the form of her daughter’s aggressive ghost. For Sethe, the present is mostly a struggle to beat back the past, because the memories of her daughter’s death and the experiences at Sweet Home are too painful for her to recall consciously. But Sethe’s repression is problematic, because the absence of history and memory inhibits the construction of a stable identity. Even Sethe’s hard-won freedom is threatened by her inability to confront her prior life. Paul D’s arrival gives Sethe the opportunity and the impetus to finally come to terms with her painful life history.
The dangerous aspect of Sethe's love is first established with the comments of Paul D regarding her attachment to Denver. At page 54, when Sethe refuses to hear Paul D criticize Denver, he thinks: "Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous( )" he deems Sethe's attachment dangerous because he believes that when "( ) they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack ( )" having such a strong love will prevent her from going on with her life. Paul D's remarks indicate that evidently the loved one of a slave is taken away. Mothers are separated from their children, husbands from their wives and whole families are destroyed; slaves are not given the right to claim their loved ones. Having experienced such atrocities, Paul D realizes that the deep love Sethe bears for her daughter will onl...
A metaphor is used to show how Paul D compares his heart to a tobacco box. We learn that he feels he has a “tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut. He would not pry it loose now in front of this sweet sturdy woman…” (Morrison 86). The rusted tin box symbolizes his unwillingness to talk about his past. The bitter painful memories of his past hurts for him to recall. Since he is unwilling to deal with his past he roams around unwilling to settle down. Once he finds Sethe he begins to settle down, however he is still unable to fully express his feelings. This results in a lack of connection between the
Toni Morrison’s powerful novel Beloved is based on the aftermath of slavery and the horrific burden of slavery’s hidden sins. Morrison chooses to depict the characters that were brutalized in the life of slavery as strong-willed and capable of overcoming such trauma. This is made possible through the healing of many significant characters, especially Sethe. Sethe is relieved of her painful agony of escaping Sweet Home as well as dealing with pregnancy with the help of young Amy Denver and Baby Suggs. Paul D’s contributions to the symbolic healing take place in the attempt to help her erase the past. Denver plays the most significant role in Sethe’s healing in that she brings the community’s support to her mother and claims her own individuality in the process. Putting her trust in other people is the only way Sethe is able to relieve herself of her haunted past and suffering body. Morrison demonstrates that to overcome the scars of slavery, one must place themselves in the hands of those that love them, rather than face the painful memories alone.
Paul believes that everyone around him is beneath him. He is convinced that he is superior to everyone else in his school and in his neighborhood. He is even condescending to his teachers, and shows an appalling amount of contempt for them, of which they are very aware.
In the beginning of the story, Paul seems to be a typical teenage boy: in trouble for causing problems in the classroom. As the story progresses, the reader can infer that Paul is rather withdrawn. He would rather live in his fantasy world than face reality. Paul dreaded returning home after the Carnegie Hall performances. He loathed his "ugly sleeping chamber with the yellow walls," but most of all, he feared his father. This is the first sign that he has a troubled homelife. Next, the reader learns that Paul has no mother, and that his father holds a neighbor boy up to Paul as "a model" . The lack of affection that Paul received at home caused him to look elsewhere for the attention that he craved.
...ba (112). Throughout the novel, Sethe is devoted to the search of her husband just like Solomon’s beloved wife. Although Sethe never reunites with her husband because he was killed by slaveholders, Morrison creates a replacement in the character Paul D, another former slave. Paul D satisfies the biblical beloved’s description of Sethe’s bridegroom: “I am my beloved’s and his desire is toward me” (7:10), thus fulfilling the promise of a requited love that is pictured in the union of Solomon and Sheba (120).
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.
...from slavery as well as the misery slavery itself causes her. Ultimately, Sethe makes a choice to let go of the past as she releases Beloved's hand and thus moves on to the future. In the very last segment of the novel, the narrator notes that finally "they forgot [Beloved]. Like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep" (290). Sethe no longer represses history but actually lets it go. As a result, Beloved becomes nothing more than "an unpleasant dream," suggesting that she does not exist as a real person, but rather has no substance as a mere fantasy or hallucination which has no value to the community or to Sethe, Denver, or Paul D. Sethe moves on with her life as she has already faced the past, tried to make amends for her mistakes, and finally realizes her own value in life.
The relationships Sethe had with her children is crazy at first glance, and still then some after. Sethe being a slave did not want to see her children who she loved go through what she herself had to do. Sethe did not want her children to have their “animal characteristics,” put up on the bored for ...
Sethe’s desire to be loved provokes Sethe to become completely dependent on Beloved. Sethe’s lack of love incites her to believe that if Beloved is happy, all will be well. In an attempt for love, Sethe becomes Beloved’s prisoner, “Anything she wanted she got, and when Sethe ran out of things to give her, Beloved invented desire.” (Morrison 240) Sethe’s effort to satisfy Beloved, is an attempt to escape from her past, “Denver thought she understood the connection between her mother and Beloved: Sethe was trying to make up for the handsaw.” (Morrison 251) Sethe becomes so concerned with pleasing Beloved that she gets fired from her job and spends all of her time serving to Beloved’s needs. Sethe sinks as low as to stop eating to feed Beloved a sufficient amount of food, “The hungrier they got the weaker.” (Morrison 239) The reason that Sethe goes to such far measures to coexist through Beloved is because she feels that her life with Beloved will make her happy. Sethe is extremely vulnerable to any one who shows her any attention because she has never been close to love before. Sethe no longer wants to take part in a life where one can “hide in its breast, finger its earth, cling to its banks to lap water and try not to love it.” (Morrison 268) Sethe holds such a desire to love someone, that she abandons the rest of her life for the opportunity to take part in a loving relationship. Sethe’s loveless past places her in a love triangle. She does not know who to love; herself, Beloved or Denver. It is not until the end of the novel when Paul D tells Sethe, “you (Sethe) are your best thing, Sethe. You are,” (273) that Sethe realizes she must find love with in herself before she can learn to love anyone