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Enslavement In Beloved

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Recommended: Slavery in American Literature

In the book Beloved by Toni Morrison the setting of Sweet Home plays a big role in creating the theme of enslavement. Sweet Home is linked to many characters’ enslavement, both physically and mentally.
Sethe, an escaped slave, years later remains a victim of enslavement that began back in Sweet Home. While she remains away from Sweet Home and all slaves have been emancipated, Sethe is trapped by the memories of the horrific place that is Sweet Home. The memories of having her milk stolen and committing infanticide due to the increasing fear of not only having to return to slavery, but introducing her children to a horrendous way of living, has chained her mental state. Sethe’s physical body is free, but the memories refrain her from leaving the past in the past. The stealing of her milk degraded her womanhood and broke her husband Halle enough to never hear from him again. Left without milk and a man, Sethe was left powerless and fragile from that moment onward. Sethe also holds on to the guilt of killing her own child that in turn limits her from fulfilling her duties as a mother. She chose to create a barrier …show more content…

He spent numerous days working endlessly, he was objectified, studied, and given a numerical sense of worth, he had his freedom mocked by a rooster, and found escaping to be the only way out of the misery that became his life in Sweet Home. Schoolteacher’s reign pushed him beyond limits that broke him, and left him broken for the remainder of his life. He preferred to have jumped in the fire with Sixo than to continue living the way he was. However, having been caught escaping he was sent to Georgia where he faced even more torment alongside other men. While the chain gang did escape, Paul D was not the same. For the next 18 years he moved around frequently and locked his emotions in a rusted tobacco tin, all because Sweet Home was not so sweet

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