Motherliness In Toni Morrison's Beloved

Most of all, Sethe is a mother. During her escape from Sweet Home, motherliness is accentuated as the toughest propeller. The most apparent question of a reader is that why a mother should kill her infant and whether this act can be made clear and be justified, by the ruthless structure of slavery. Many articles served the main topic of Sethe’s role as a affectionate mother in Beloved. Liz Lewis, for example in Moral ambiguity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Jazz, argues that, “Beloved reflects how in such a society allowing oneself to love is dangerous practice doomed to heartache.” (2) The slaves somehow did not have the ability to love anyone. Motherliness and familial relations were treated as void that was taken for granted; as the families of slaves were frequently separated and alienated. Their family members were put up for sale and the women slaves were methodically ill-treated mutually by the other slaves and the white oppressors. There are quite a few instances like these in the novel Beloved. Sethe’s

Henderson in Beloved: A Casebook makes the point, “that if memory is materialized in the reappearance of Beloved it is maternalized in Sethe’s (re)configuration.”(91) Sethe gives birth to her future, in an appearance of an unfamiliar infant. Similarly she also gives birth to her past, the birth of Beloved is symbolical and afterwards maternalizes her past by compensating her role as a mother to Beloved. Sethe seeks no other significant role in her life other than the role of a mother. Stephanie A. Demetropoulos in an article “Maternal Bonds as the Devourers of Women’s Individuation in Toni Morrison’s Beloved” from African American Review gives his point of view that Morrison in Beloved “develops the idea that maternal bonds can stunt or even obviate a woman’s individuation or sense of self.”(51) Sethe cannot think of her own self and live the life she desires; not until she is liberated from the responsibility of her children and her child’s