She My Daughter

( Page 236 )

BELOVED, she my daughter. She mine. See. She come back to me of her own free will and I don't have to explain a thing. I didn't have time to explain before because it had to be done quick. Quick. She had to be safe and I put her where she would be. But my love was tough and she back now. I knew she would be. Paul D ran her off so she had no choice but to come back to me in the flesh. I bet you Baby Suggs, on the other side, helped. I won't never let her go. I'll explain to her, even though I don't have to. Why I did it. How if I hadn't killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her. When I explain it she'll understand, because she understands everything already. I'll tend her as no mother ever tended a child, a daughter. Nobody will ever get my milk no more except my own children. I never had to give it to nobody else-- and the one time I did it was took from me--they held me down and took it. Milk that belonged to my baby. Nan had to nurse white babies and me too because Ma'am was in the rice. The little whitebabies got it first and I got what was left. Or none. There was no nursing milk to call my own. I know what it is to be without the milk that belongs to you; to have to fight and holler for it, and to have so little left. i'll tell Beloved about that; she'll understand. She my daughter. The one I managed to have milk for and to get it to her even after they stole it; after they handled me like I was the cow, no, the goat, back behind the stable because it was too nasty to stay in with the horses. But I wasn't too nasty to cook their food or take care of Mrs. Garner. I tended her like I would have tended my own mother if she needed me. If they had let her out the rice field, because I was the one she didn't throw away. I couldn't have done more for that woman than I would my own ma'am if she was to take sick and need me and I'd have stayed with her till she got well or died.

And I would have stayed after that except Nan snatched me back.

The words, “She come back to me” and  “own free will,” are some very powerful words (236). The reason why these words are so powerful, are because when someone leaves, you think that they are not going to come back. If you think about the free will of slaves  during this time, it is very hard to imagine.

In chapter 21, it begins with Sethe’s monologue about Beloved and how Beloved is “my daughter, she mine.. She come back to me of her own free will…” (236). There are a lot of complications when Beloved returns, and Sethe confronts them in her monologue. The idea that she thinks, “how if i hadn't killed her she would have died and that's something I could not bear to happen to her.” (236). How do we know this would actually happen? For all we know she has stayed alive, why does she feel that her own children would not survive? Does she believe she is stronger than what her own children will be when they are older?  Looking at this through a feminist lens I can't help but think why would she think she is stronger than her own children? Why does she feel as if she has the ability to stay alive, but her children will not? And if so, is this why she primarily didn’t kill her boys? Did she think that just hurting them was enough, but did not actually try to kill them like she did with Beloved and was so close to doing to Denver? Does she think the boys had a better chance of surviving, or did she not think at all about how she was going to hurt her own children?

When Sethe says, “Nobody will ever get my milk no more except my own children ...I know what it is like to be without the milk that belongs to you;..”(236), the reference to milk is very powerful. It’s powerful because she is talking about her own mother here. How she was deprived from her own mother’s milk. The white children drank from her mom, as the white children drank Sethe’s milk. Sethe does not like how her own children are not drinking from her. She will not let this again happen to Beloved. Beloved will have the love and care from Sethe. While reading this through a feminist lens I discovered that there is no masculinity in the fact that she gets her milk stolen from her by men. She got tied down while they stole her milk. She is seen as weak. She is not able to provide for her own children. Milk can only be  provided by women, and not men. It is disgusting that men take this away from her. She feels as if this was the worst thing that happened to Sethe, because she knows how it is to not have her owns mother’s milk. That connection is lost and she does not want Beloved to have that relationship broken.

Lastly, from analyzing this passage I realized that Sethe mentions a lot about how Beloved will “understand” (236). This was mentioned a few times. This seems as if she is trying to convince herself that Beloved will understand exactly how Sethe feels. While looking at this through a feminist lens I also could tell that women are seen as forgiving. Females are also able to understand emotionally and physically, so do men, but not as much as women. Comparing this to how Paul D left Sethe and did not allow Sethe to explain to him why she killed her own children. He left and was not understanding nor forgiving, while Beloved managed to forgive Sethe, and so did Denver. While the two boys of Sethe did not forgive her, but ran away from her. This makes me think that women were primarily seen as forgiving and understanding in Beloved.