FREE ESSAY ON WHY SETHE'S CHILDREN AREN'T HERS

WHY SETHE'S CHILDREN AREN'T HERS

Why Sethe's children weren't hers
It is the ultimate gesture of a loving mother. It is the outrageous claim of a slave.
These are the words that Toni Morrison used to describe the actions of the central
character within the novel, Beloved. That character, Sethe, is presented as a former
slave woman who chooses to kill her baby girl rather than allowing her to be exposed to
the physically, emotionally, and spiritually oppressive horrors of a life spent in
slavery. Sethe's action is indisputable: She has killed her child. Sethe's motivation is
not so clearly defined. By killing her Beloved child, has Sethe acted out of true love or
selfish pride? The fact that Sethe's act is irrational can easily be decided upon. Does
Sethe kill her baby girl because she wants to save the baby from slavery or does Sethe
end her daughter's life because of a selfish refusal to reenter a life of slavery? By
examining the complexities of Sethe's character it can be said that she is a woman who
chooses to love her children but not herself. Sethe kills her baby because, in Sethe's
mind, her children are the only good and pure part of who she is and must be protected
from the cruelty and the dirtiness of slavery. In this respect, her act is that of love
for her children. 
Throughout Beloved, Sethe's character consistently displays the duplistic nature of her
actions. Not long after Sethe's reunion with Paul D. she describes her reaction to School
Teacher's arrival. Sethe's words suggest that she has made a moral stand by her refusal
to allow herself and her children to be dragged back into the evil of slavery. From the
beginning, it is clear that Sethe believes that her actions were morally justified. The
peculiarity of her statement lies in her omission of the horrifying fact that her moral
stand was based upon the murder of her child. By not even approaching the subject of her
daughter's death, it is also made clear that Sethe has detached herself from the act.
Sethe's frustration is a product of her contradictory reasoning. She views her children
as an extension of her life that needed to be protected, at any cost. Sethe's concept of
loving and protecting her children becomes synonymous with her killing Beloved and
attempting to kill the rest. Sethe can see no wrong here. Placing her children outside
the horror of slavery, even if it meant taking their lives, was in her mind a justified
act of love, nothing more.
Sethe's problem is rooted in her inability to recognize the boundaries between herself
and her children. Paul D. stabs at the heart of this problem by suggesting that Sethe had
overstepped her boundaries by killing her child. 
The concept that Sethe equates her life and self-worth with her connection to her
children is most graphically illustrated in her mad ravings to the reincarnation of
Beloved. Sethe details a defense for killing her baby to the woman she believes is her
reincarnated, murdered daughter. Saving her children from slavery and the promise of
spiritual and emotional death that such an institution imposes is the rational of love
that Sethe's character clings to. The truth that Sethe's character selfishly avoids is
the actual physical death that she has inflicted upon her child. 
Understanding why a woman would kill any child, let alone her own baby, is complex
Sethe's character is no exception. Sethe's motivation does not fit into a simple
schematic. Sethe is presented as a woman who loves her children so much that she is
willing to kill them rather than allow them to be broken by an evil institution. Love is,
then, Sethe's primary motivation for killing her baby. However, Sethe's love for her
children does not preclude her responsibility for Beloved's death. Indeed, Sethe's
selfish fault lies in the fact that she has shifted the focus of responsibility from
herself to the institution that has spawned her. 
Bibliography
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. 
Morrison, Toni. Interview. Documentary. Public Broadcasting Company. 1987.