Being almost half way through the book, the more and more I read, the more and more I find the book disturbing, but engaging. I have learned a lot from this book, one being that a mothers love for her children is so vital. Also the lengths which a mother will take to protect her own children.
We always here quotes about mothers, and their love for their children. Like Agatha Christie said, “A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in this world.” While I strongly agree with this statement, I feel as if Beloved stretches this idea to a point that is not healthy. The reason I say this is because comparing Sethe, to my own mom, and other moms, I know my mom would never try to kill me, even if there was harm coming my way. The foreshadowing occurs greatly throughout the book when Paul D, or Baby Suggs, say to Sethe, “For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was danger, especially if it was her children she had settled to love,” (54). This is a sign of foreshadowing because later in the book we realize what Sethe does to protect her children from becoming slaves. Sethe tries to kill all of her children, “Inside, two boys bled in the sawdust and dirt at the feet of a nigger woman holding a blood soaked child to her chest with one hand and an infant by the heels in the other. She did not look at them; and simply swung the baby [Denver] toward the wall planks…” (175). Here is a great example of why one might feel disturbed. All along you feel that Sethe loves her children with great respect, but then you find out she tries to kill all her own children because she does not want the white man to take them and become slaves.
What I see through feminist lens from this scene is A mother who was scared for her children. She was rather traumatized from what she has gone through being a slave herself, which lead her to her actions of trying to kill her own children, so they would not become slaves. Though this is the extreme, this is her act of love for her children. When she realizes that she made the wrong mistake, it causes her grief that she has to live with.
Wouldn’t a mother want to keep her child, rather than trying to kill her own child? This is where the statement you cannot love something too much, otherwise it will hurt you. The grief of what she has done to her children stays with her, which is evidently shown when Paul D says what happens when you are dead, and Sethe says, “Nothing! I’ll protect her while i'm live and ill protect her when i ain’t,” (54). They way that Paul D, says don't love one to much, shows the division of genders. Woman care and take care of their children, while men act as if they are stronger and too superior to show love. There is stereotypes that women love more than men, and women are the ones who take care of their children. You do not hear about stay home dads very often, as you hear about stay home moms.
Sethe has been seen as strong woman. Unlike her husband Halle, who saw Sethe being raped, and said nor did anything about it, but rather left her. Woman are primarily stronger within Beloved. From what I have read, the men also seem rather weak. For example, Paul D could not stand up to Beloved, and they both had sex. This shows a sign of weakness on his part. While Beloved, which is a woman, is seen rather strong and superior. 
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