The Effects of Slavery on Motherhood in Morrison’s BELOVED

DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS

Concept of slavery:

Slavery means to force a person forced to pay forcible labor, and in this case, any person is

regarded as another people’s movable property. Someone can be slave instead of his will. It may

be his detention, birth, time to buy. Without the permission of slaves, the owner can change their

place or labor wages. In some societies, killing his servant is lawful, and it is considered as an

offense in other places. In ancient times and in medieval society buying and selling people was a

custom by which people could be brought at different prices.The common practice is called

slavery. Slaves were sold as products in the current market. There is a market for buying and

selling such products in modern. In the past, there was aseparate market for buying or selling

slaves. At that time a lot of foreign exchange was earned from the import andexport of slaves and

this had an impact on the economy of the country.

Types of slavery in Beloved

All types of slavery are not same. There were soft slave owners and even cruel slave owners.

There are even types of slavery that people blame themselves, to same like Sethe condemned

herself to Beloved's slavery. This chapter will be analyzing the difference between the life of

slaves at Sweet Home in time of Mr. Garner and the changes caused bySchoolteacher's different

perception of slaves.

Sweet Home and Garner

During the life of slaves at Sweet Home, the Garner's role can only be called slavery. His

plantation was not big, but six slaves were enough for them, and combined with Garner's good

personality, their slaves were provided with much better life conditions then most ofthe slaves

during the slaveholding period in America. '' White people believed that whatever the manners,

underevery dark skin was a junglered gums ready for their Sweet white blood''(Morrison 235),

but Garner confirms Stamp-paid's words, sensation of African American is a result of white

people’s fear of the different race. And different mentality from other slave owners, he never

imposed animalistic feature to his slaves as other slaves owners did,but rather considered them to

be '' real men'' because if you a man yourself, you will want your niggers to be men

too''(Morrison 12).Paul D and other believed that no other slave in Kentucky had ever

experienced Garner was more of a father, a friend and a master for them, than their teacher. They

were always encouraged to Garner, even delay him. Mr.Garner was liberal by the standards of

slave owners, and insisted that his slaves were the only male slaves inKentucky who were real

man. During the long period that Baby Suggs served Mrs. Garner at Sweet Home she was never

misbehaved, which is already a huge improvement compared to Schoolteacher's systems of

'lesson ' forinstance. Baby Suggs was aware of this ''special kind of slavery ''Where they were

treated like paid labor and learntthings that, according to white people, slaves were not supported

to know, and it worried her in some way because of

her bad experiences with her former master, resulting in her questioning of Garner's purpose with

his slaves. Mr. Garners died unexpectedly of a stroke and the whole structure was changes.

Schoolteacher believes him to havespoilt the slaves and gave them too much liberty, which

resulted in their uncontrollability. He even considersGarner's softness to be against the law,

Sethe and Paul D after get nostalgic about life at Sweet Home before Schoolteacher, because
they had all they needed back then, they were a family, with Mr. Garner as the head of it,

andwithout his life, each of theirs fell to pieces'' (Morrison 259).

Sweet Home and Schoolteacher

Schoolteacher was acruel and sadistic master, interested in way to break wills of his slaves.

Schoolteacher and Mr. Garner both are liketwo part of the same medal.When Mr. Garner was

one of the best bosses a slave could have, Schoolteacher was thatugly part of the slavery a slave

owner who would not do anything to humiliate his slaves to the largest range possible.He was

the main reason of misery ay Sweet Home and after his arrival at the plantation is described as

hell on earth...there was not leaf on that farm that did not make her want to scream...It never

looked as horrible as it was and it madeher wonder if hell pretty place too''(Morrison 7). It seems

as his all experience at Sweet Home was just part of hisexperiment upon slaves. Rushky claims

that''it is Schoolteacher who uses writing in a detrimental way.Schoolteacherattempts to read and

write Sethe as a subhuman thing by listing what he calls her 'animal' characteristics alongsideher

human ones''(Rushdy 23). He went so far with the belief that slaves are of animalistic nature that

he wasobserving them, making notes about their behavior and outlook and tried to teach young

men to think this way too it was like creating his ideology. He observed slaves only in terms of

working machine, children as extra resources,and nice source of income if he divided to sell

them. He strongly believed that slaves needed guidance of whitepeople to live a '' proper '' life

and not to get back to ''the cannibal life preferred ''(Morrison 177). What he consideredto be a

good life for a slave was nothing like Garner's way of treating them, but unlimited obedience

instead, and ifthey failed to do so, there was always the iron bit for stuffing their mouth,because

he believed that the ability tospeak made them most similar to " real humans. The extent of the
misery he caused for the Sweet Home slaves isdescribed by the destruction of 'the family' the

Garner created out of his slaves- One crazy one sold one missing, oneburnt and me licking iron

with my hands crossed behind me. The last of the Sweet Homemen' (Morrison 84).Schoolteacher

is the pure image of the cruelty of the slaveholding system.The dehumanizing and self-

righteousbehaviors of the schoolteacher epitomizes oneaspect of the evil slavery.

The effect of slavery:

Physical punishment was an indispensable part of every slave's life. Next to the licking and

physical pain, this had served consequences on their psyche. And if they managed to reach the

free land it was extremely hard for them to have anormal life. Beloved portrayed two aspects of

slavery -physical and Psychological.

Physical Effect

When thinking about the history of Slavery the first thing that comes to mind is the physical

impact that it had on slaves. All kinds ofmistreating of slaves that’s according to Douglass talk

about in his narrative are present in Morrison's novel. By theway, this mistreatment never

happened during Garner's regime at sweet home. At is either mentioned when Sethe orBaby

Suggs remember the plantation they were previously at, or when describing Sweet Home after

Schoolteacher'sarrival. Physical punishment and violation of the slaves' body was his way of

testing their bear ability of oppression. It is worst of wearying an iron bit to Paul D's mouth. The

second worst thing is the rape of African-American women,who, in-mast cases got impregnate

by their master. It shows the Master domination Over a female slave anddetermines her body as

his property. Sethe's mother was pregnant eight times with eight different men and decidedto

keep only Sethe because the father was of the same origin as she was, while the other men were
all white. Anotherimpact is thing about Sethe's mother is that she was Stam singed. When Paul D

and sixo tried to escape,Schoolteacher divided to go an extra mile -burn Sixo alive and sell Paul

D to Brandywine a cruel slave owner, whoPaul D had experienced significant trauma. The

ditches in which he spent numerous days with forty-five others menwere hell on earth for the

Shackled men: The one thousand feet of earth five feet deep, five feet wide into whichwooden

boxes had been fitted. A door of bars that you could lift on hinges like a cage opened into their

wall and arope of scrap lumber and red dirt. Two feet of it over his head three feet of trench in

front of him with anything thatcrawled or scurried welcome to share that grave calling itself

quarters (Morrison 125).

Psychological Effect

Whenour bodies are imprisonment we struggle for liberation, but when the mind-brain is

enslaved and the lords of theworld dance like puppets on a rope, we do not accept it with case.

Physical impact of slavery is psychological impactthat it leaves. FloriaBast argues that the novel

portrays slavery as, a system which consciously inflicts horrible psychological wound of

African-American (Bast-6). Characters are systematically dehumanized throughout the novelas

schoolteachers tried to separate their human characteristics from their animalistic features.

Moglen claims that, since they are denied the basic rights and are not seen as a part of society,

but only in terms of working hands asthey really were animal slaves are also denied of

identification as a man or women (Moglen 12). They are perceived asand female but do not have

same roles as men and women in white society. According to mentality of slave owners, this

does not give the right to choose their spouse and their sexuality serves mainly for the production

of the new working machines and profit for the master if he decides sell the children. This

conducting function is the main cause of the leadership between mothers and their children in
this system. The last of her children, whom she barely glanced at when he was born because it

wasn’t worth the trouble to try to learn features you would never see change into adulthood

anyway (Morrison 164).Children were the taken from their mothers correct after the birth and

families were destroyed by selling their members to different slaves owners in order to weaken

the relationship between them. The slave owners were verbally implementing the feeling of

insanity in their slaves as means of keeping them subordinated. Since characteristics in the novel

are affected by slavery to such an extent that they can’t separate the time at Sweet Home from

their memories of it, the novel deals initially with the way they cope with their past and suggests

that only confrontation is the way to release and resuming themselves.

Motherhood in Beloved

In many reverences, Beloved is a story about motherhood and how Slavery affected Black

women's ability to be honest mothers. Opening with Baby Suggs, who had all but one of her

children sold to plantations far away from her. It is clear that slavery erected many physical

obstacles between a mother and her children. At times these obstacles existed even on the same

plantation, as Sethe and her motherhood exhibited. As Sethe's mother worked in the fields,

another woman assigned to look after the plantation’s children raised Sethe. This left time for the

Sethe and her mother to bond and build a relationship (Morrison 112). As a result, physical

obstacles become an emotional one as well. Looking at Sethe, we see slavery's effect on Black

mother at its most extreme. Rather than watch her children become slaves, Sthe attempted to kill

them. At first see, Sethe's action seem opposite to our expectations of a mother's attitude.

Everyone who witness her attitude, from Stampaid to the schoolteacher, struggle to understand

her seemingly evil barbaric act. However, if we consider the idea that a slave's life is a fate worse

than death, Sethe's deeds become easier to understand. She believed she was being a good
mother by sparing her Children from slavery and all its fear. However, since Sethe become a

Social parish after her actions, it’s clear that very few agree with her reasoning.

Sethe

In Beloved main character is Sethe who always overpowering love her children. Her love is'' too

think'' (Morrison 193). She cares for her children with all of her heard, refuses to see them go

through pain exc... Killing them to prevent them going through pain. She cares about own

children more than herself (Morrison 20). Shethe's personality as we know it in the novel has

been influenced by different things about her life and someone aspects of her mental state are

even remarkable in her physical features. There is not description of Sethe's looks throughout the

novel, there are in fact only two things that is, next to describing her appearance, symbolize her

mental condition. Her eyes are described all black, which symbolizes the emptiness inside her.

She had never seen the chokecherry tree on her back, but assumed that after eighteen years it

might even have flower, meaning that, just like a tree. Caring for her children is her reason to

live. Refuses to hear anything bad about hear children or accept them as grown, they always hear

to care for(Morrison 54). Sethe was treated better while she was a slave. Was too young to work

hard in the fled at the plantation before Sweet Home. She did not light work at Sweet Home. And

she also kept most of her children didn’t keep Beloved. None of her kids were rape children and

none were sold into slavery. We repeatedly read these flashbacks many times sometimes from

varying perspective with each successive narration of on event adding a little more information

to the previous ones. From these fragmented memories the following story begins to emerge.

Sethe, the protagonist, was born in south to and African mother she never knew. When she is 13,

she is sold to the garners who own Sweet Home and practice a Comparatively benevolent kind of

slavery. There the other slaves who are all men lust after her but never touched her. Their names
are Sixo, Paul A, Paul D, Paul F and Halle.Sethe choose to marry Halle, because he has proved

big enough to buy his mother's freedom by hiring himself out on the weekneds. Together Sethe

and have two sons, as well as a baby daughter whose name we never learn. While sethe leaves,

shethe is also pregnant with a fourth child. After the death of the owenMr Garner the widowed

Mrs Garner ask her sadistic vehemently racist brother in law to help her to run the farm. He is

known to the slave as schoolteacher, and his tyrannical presence makes life on the plantation

even more unbreakable than it had been before. Having already sent her children ahead to her

mother in law Baby suggs house in Cincinnati. Invigorated by the recent capture, schoolteacher's

nephew seizedSethe in the barn and violate herstealing the milk of her body is storing for her

infant daughter. Unbeknown to Sethe, Halle is watching the event from a loft above her, where

lies frozen with horror. When schoolteacher find out that Sethe has complained his and his

nephew's misdeeds to Mrs Garner, has whipped her severely, despite the fact that she is pregnant.

Swollen and scarred Sethe nevertheless runs away, but along the way she collapses from

exhaustion in a forest. At that time a white girl, Amy Denver who helps Sethe deliver her baby in

the boat. Sethe receives further help from Stamp paid, who rows her across the Ohio river to

Baby suggs house. Sethe spent 28 wonderful days in Cincinnati. On the last day, schoolteacher

comes for Sethe to take her and her children back to sweet Home. Rather than surrender her

children ti life of dehumanizing slavery, she flees with them the woodshed and tries to kill them.

Only the third child, her older daughter, dies. Her throat having been cut with a handsaw by

Sethe.Then she goes to jail but a group of white abolitionists, led by the Bodwin, fright for the

release.

Sethe's Mom
Sethe's mother does not love children of rape. She killed all children but Sethe. Not able to care

for children and she does not sleep in the same cabin (Morrison 72). Throws away all

childrenwith white men. Kepps child from black man of Sethe. She works hard in the fields.

None of her children were sold into slavery.

Baby suggs

As the Novel opens, Baby suggs is lying in her bed, sick of life and craving for colours. Sethe

claimed that Baby Suggs was disappointed with life so many times that freedom meant nothing

to her once she got it, which is nor perfectly true. It is undeniable that she had a impolite time

before Sweet Home, taken into count that she had had eight children, who were all except for

Halle, taken away from her, and, physical punishment, which left a permanent scar in from of a

broken hip. She herself did not believe that freedom would have a positive effect on her life,

since she was under the pressure of slavery too long perceive herself as an individual worth of

happiness. Her identity was taken away from her to the range that she could not even describe

her personality features. It is pitiful that a grown -up woman knows more about her children,

who were taken away from her and the only thing she could actually remember was how much

her first born liked the burn crust of a bread than about herself. Despite the feeling of

unworthiness, she felt different the moment she steeped on the ground of the Ohio state. It was as

if she werere-born, she perceived her hands as her own property and heard her heartbeat for the

first time.As a symbolic exchange from Baby suggs a slave to Baby suggs a free African-

american, she dicided to change her name from jenny withlow, the one that was written on her

sales ticket, to Baby Suggs a nickname her husband gave her and his last name, because these

two were all she had left of her husband (Morrison 168).
Paul D and Other slaves

In Sweet Home plantation there was worked six slaves. Their names are Sixo, Paul D,Paul D,

Sethe, Baby suggs and Halle. Both enjoyed work at sweet home plantation. One day death of the

main owner Mr Garner than of the proprietor change, now, schoolteacher owner of the

plantation. His behavior does not like all slave. On the other hand,Schoolteacher nephew cruelty

treated so all slave are decide to run. Schoolteacher and his nephew anticipate the slave release,

however and capture Paul D and Sixo. Schoolteacher kills Sixo and brings Paul D back to sweet

Home. Paul D is forced to suffer the indignity of wearing an iron bit in his mouth. He has

endured torturous experience in chain gang in Georgia where he was sent after trying to kill

Brandywine a slave owner to whom he was sold by schoolteacher. His traumatic experiences

have causes him to lock away his memories, emotions and ability to love in the 'tin tobacco box'

of his heart. One day fortuitous rainstorm allows Paul D and other chain gang members to

escape. Before American civil war all slaves are not freedom.The owners did not give move to

other places. The white people used black people at any time as like animal.

Ella and Denver experience

Ella is a loyal employee of the Bodwin family. She is a woman who had worked on the

underground railroad and helped with Sethe's escape, in the order to exorcise Beloved from 124.

When she arrives at the house. Then Beloved who smiling at them, naked and pregnant. He helps

Denver get a job. He helps black people in many ways. He had a special role in driving the ghost

of Beloved from house No. 124. When sethe could not capable work. The community provides

the family with food. After that Denver go out the house and she work at restaurant. The novel
than end with a warning that, this is not a story pass on. The town, and even the residents of 124,

have forgotten Beloved like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep.