Thoughts on "Slavery and Motherhood in Toni Morrison's 'Beloved'"

   Recently, I read an article written by Terry Paul Caesar that includes the ideas from Beloved, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and another author who speaks of the different novels written to uncover the truth of slavery.

    Caesar talks mainly how Motherhood is reflected throughout Beloved and how Sethe, Denver, and Beloved take the thought of being a Mother to new levels. For example, when Paul D asks Sethe to have a baby with him, she states, "Needing to be good enough, alert enough, strong enough, that caring-- again. Having to stay alive just that much longer. O Lord, she thought, deliver me unless carefree, motherlove is a killer." (Morrison, 132) When I look back and reread this section, I think about Sethe meaning that "motherlove is (literally) a killer." That being a mother wasn't worth it; putting her children through all the horror that she went through is nothing that a mother should be doing. She only wanted to protect her children from the White man, and this is the only way that she thought she could. I don't not think that it was right for her to do so, but I understand her perspective and the helpless feeling she had when she thought of protecting her family. While this may be true, it was very interesting to read what Caesar had to say about the same section. He claims, "the novel becomes an explanation of what it means for Sethe to 'own' herself as a function of disowning her daughter." (Caesar, 113) While I was thinking more in the perspective of the motherhood in Sethe, Caesar looked through the woman whom had just escaped slavery. While being a free woman, Sethe had no idea of how to live her life and how to start it when she was constantly worried about her babies being in danger of what she just recently escaped. To find herself, she needed to step outside of her normal life and find what it meant to be free. It brings an illusion of Sethe being a child in a very grown up world, and that she didn't think about the consequences of her actions before acting because she was always treated as property or a child, rather than being the mother who takes care of her children. 

   While Caesar's article begins to touch of mothers vs. children, he goes deeper into the interactions that Sethe and Beloved have to distinguish the difference between the two. He states, "Sethe and Beloved eventually enact such a fervent repossession of each other that it becomes impossible to distinguish between them." (Caesar, 118) Looking back, it's interesting to think of Beloved as the mother while she always acted, talked, and dressed like a child living under the obsession of Sethe. Throughout the novel, we begin to see more of Sethe as a child rather than the mother, and Beloved turns into this mother figure by feeding off of everyone else's trauma to become someone who is a mother-like figure.
    In conclusion, the figures within the book and the roles that the players take on transform into something completely different to allow the reader to look at it from many different perspectives.