Beloved Essay
Uploaded by zeo01 on Jul 04, 2004
Several relationships are found in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. The story comprises of interactions between relationships and how the people learn to deal with the fact that they were once slaves on a plantation. The two motherly figures Sethe and Baby Suggs both cared greatly for their children and suffered a great deal from slavery. Their roles as mothers serve as a common ground, allowing them to communicate and develop a close relationship. Mothers all have one thing in common, the love for a child. Sethe has four children who she loves but her past with slavery conflicts with her emotions. She cannot not deal with the pain of her children being sent back to Sweet Home, the slave plantation Sethe came from, so she tries to murder them. She is successful with one child, Beloved, but fails to kill Denver, Howard and Buglar. The community shuns her for the heinous act and the mother is converted into an outcast. Her natural and motherly instincts force her to do what was in her right mind to save her children. She has to save them from the schoolteacher and slavery most of all. Sethe’s tragic past experience with slavery and degradation is what she tries to steer clear of at all cost for her children. The struggle to save her children by murdering them makes Sethe a very unique, yet controversial mother.
Baby Suggs is also a motherly figure. She is probably the most universal motherly figure because she cared for everybody, including slave runaways. The ex-slaves would come to her for aide and she provides support by preaching in her own untrained, spiritual, method. Toni Morrison provides an archetypal mother to see how Sethe compares with the ideal mother. Baby Suggs is caring and understanding of Sethe’s actions, but still has a hard time adapting to the situation.
When Sethe meets Stamp Page and is brought to Baby Suggs’ home, she is taken care and provided for. She is immediately treated too and so is her ragged baby. Baby Suggs gave nurturing support and advice to Sethe on how to care for her children. The scene where the two mothers are together and Sethe breastfeeds Denver for the first time exemplifies the common relationship that all mothers have to care...