Nishadi Perera Davis 6747 Literature 14 May 2017 In the Woodshed: Was Sethe Justified? There is no denying the impact of slavery on African-American literature. Many black author’s ancestors arrived against their will on ships that were over-occupied. African American scholar and social historian Lerone Bennet Jr. describes slavery as “the saga of the black men whose backs were lacerated by the white men. It is the tale of the black women who were manhandled by their white masters.
Morrison drew inspiration from slavery and the slave ships to document Sethe coming to terms with a terrible past, and to overcome a frightening time in her life. The most obvious aspect of the novel Morrison adapted from real life is that of Margaret Garner. Garner escaped from Kentucky in 1856, crossed the Ohio river, and made it to Cincinnati. But the Fugitive Slave Act permitted owners to hunt down slaves in free states. Garner then murders her daughter with a butcher knife. Sethe follows this course, escaping Sweet Home, reaching some security over the Ohio, and then nearly decapitates baby Beloved.
The main reason both people committed infanticide is because, in their opinions, slavery is far worse than death. For a female slave, life was perilous. Women were subjugated by men, often raped, left to take care of a child, and see it ripped from their hands at a young age to be exploited for labor on a farm. Slavery had so many damaging effects, physically and psychologically. Physically, she carries scars resembling that of “A chokecherry tree. Trunk, branches, and even leaves” (Morrison 16). Sethe has a nonchalant attitude discussing the tree, joking, “Could have cherries too now for all i know” (16).
But the most disturbing abuse, the one that elicits the most reaction when Paul D questions her, is “And they took my milk! ” (17). Assistant professor of English at Lady Irwin College Shubhanku Kochar discusses the mentality Sethe has in making her choice in the woodshed Sethe slew her own daughter because she knew pretty well that to be a woman in the times of slavery was a cardinal sin. She herself was subjected to this brutal assault. She was held down by two young boys, one held her down while the other stole her milk.
Slavery has left Sethe feeling like a cow, and she is not alone in her testimony. She shares this experience with the countless of other violated black slaves. But was she really making the right decision? She mentioned previously walking in a class and having schoolteacher berate her, transforming her human qualities into a beast. She is then violated of her breast milk and robbed of her most personal quality. Schoolteacher has an odd relationship to slaves. He views them as mere property, which one can manipulate and torture. He justifies his use of violence mostly to teach a lesson.
From pages one hundred forty-nine to pages one hundred fifty, Morrison writes in schoolteacher’s perspective. The reader is exposed to the inner working of a brutal slave owner, who states, “You just can’t mishandle creatures and expect success” (Morrison 150). He sees slaves not even as people, aligned with the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision. In that decision it concluded black people did not even have rights because they were not human. Nancy Jesser, a teacher of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University, discusses community and violence, dissecting schoolteacher’s power.
Under Schoolteacher’s tutelage, the pupils learn to turn people into animals. Property is property because of its assigned properties. Once the definitions are founded on what is” ‘natural to a thing, “they are not alienable, transformable, or escapable. Slaves are a commercial cost to him. He sees nothing to claim, figuring he has lost money because Sethe is too crazed. Further on, he warns his nephew of “that kind of confusion” (Morrison 150). Schoolteacher warned one of his nephews not to see Sethe as a mother doing something beneficial.
They simply are not people, and that is a big justification for the physical and mental abuse at Sweet Home. So was Sethe justified in trying to kill her children? Life was terrible for women, and her slavemaster clearly would not make life easy for her. Bite this analogy: A jewish woman hears the S. S. breaking into her home. She hides in the basement, an area between the walls only she knows about. As the S. S. descend the stairs, her youngest child starts to cry, so she smothers the baby. When Sethe and Paul D confront each other, she exclaims, “I took my babies where they’d be safe” (164).
Sethe did not fully go through with her plan, she was going to commit homicide and then suicide, so they can all live happily as a family in the afterlife. Some are disappointed in Sethe’s decision. Paul D disagreed with the decision because he does not have a family to care, and never experienced such strong bonds in a family unit. Sethe believed she was fulfilling some duty, “It ain’t my job to know what’s worse. It’s my job to know what is and to keep them away from what I know is terrible. I did that” (165). The only way to protect her kids is to keep them out of the slave trade.
It traumatized her sons, who ran away due to the ghost at 124, and her sons teased Denver about how Sethe would kill again. And Sethe partially wishes she went forward, remarking, “I should have gone on back there? ” (165). The way Morrison reports the crime, it is obvious she stays neutral, showing Sethe innocent but likewise guilty. She begins the chapter with, “When the four horsemen came–schoolteacher, one nephew, one slave catcher and a sheriff” (148). The four horsemen is in the book of Revelations, representing death, war, famine and pestilence.
Obviously, this indicates an end of the happiness Sethe felt, the happiness from Baby Suggs preaching or from the buffet just yesterday. Yet Sethe appears to enter another state of mind, the schoolteacher remarking “the whites in them had disappeared” (150). Dark black eyes are often associated with demonic activity. It clearly is not the Sethe the reader is so acquainted with throughout Beloved. Rather, Sethe has broken free from possessing a slave mentality. She appears darker because er children are her children. She will do anything for them. She is not a breeder of cattle, with udders to be licked.
She is a woman who can marry and bear and raise her children, whether it is in the present or in the afterlife. Beloved challenges readers to think deeply about the times of slavery. Morrison is not afraid to enter explicit, likely obscene material, not because it is fun, but because it is the truth. With topics of rape, mutilation and infanticide, one has to think critically of these time. Sethe may have committed a loving gesture to beloved, or she was in the wrong. But with how wretched the times were to be a slave in the United States, let alone the world, show Sethe did have a heart for her children.
