How Does Toni Morrison Present Injustice In Beloved

During one of the harshest and most brutal time in history of the United States, many people could not afford to cherish and value some of the things we take for granted today. In the mid 1800s we can see that many slaves live through brutal experiences for which they will never recover. Families get ripped apart, rapes and sexual violations take place daily, murders for the slightest mistake, occur in the lives of slaves for which they can do nothing about. In Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, we can see characters represent the cruelty of life in Kentucky, Georgia and Ohio in the 1850s to 1870s. Through the story of the main protagonist, Sethe, the story of slaves is shown, from their lives in servitude to what occurs after freedom is obtained.

She loved and valued her children so much that she could not bear to even think about letting them go back to being a slave. “The best things she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing—the part of her that was clean…Sethe had refused—and refused still” (Morrison 296). Her refusal was the stepping stone to her extreme actions, as she picked up the weapon that would end their lives she would also be liberating them forever. “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” (Morrison 194). Sethe believed the sacrifice of her children was necessary so that they could live unstained lives, and never have to undergo the barbaric experiences of slavery. The love for her children ultimately led to their demise as only her eldest daughter died, her 2 sons ran away because of their fear of her and her youngest daughter was isolated from the rest of the world. However, they are still not slaves. Sethe believed nothing could be worse than her children

“Paul D. would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be” (Morrison 5). Paul D. another slave in the novel, hides away his love and feeling so that he won’t get hurt anymore. His experiences have left him beat down and broken, and because of this he refuses to love something that could potentially hurt him even more. “It was some time before he could put Alfred, Georgia, Sixo, schoolteacher, Halle, his brothers, Sethe, Mister, the taste of iron, the sight of butter, the smell of hickory, notebook paper, one by one, into the tobacco tin lodged in his chest. By the time he got to 124 nothing in this world could pry it open" (Morrison 133). Paul D had to put away all his memories in the tobacco tin so that he would be safe from its painful contents. In an almost unbearable world the only thing Paul D is able to do is lock up his feelings and hope that they will rust and disintegrate without him having to deal with their torment again and