Sethe's Justification In Beloved

Be Loved and Be Beloved: Sethe’s Justification for Her Actions in Beloved
In Tony Morrison’s prestigious novel Beloved, the harsh reality of slavery in southern states is apparent. Sethe endures many hardships and experiences things beyond imagine. Sethe is forced to take matters into her own hands to prevent her children falling into the same trap that she did. She can’t let the white men take her kids and break them down by dehumanizing them. Sethe has experienced this and will not allow this happen to people she loves. Tony Morrison states, “Sethe did the right thing, but she didn’t have the right to do it” when discussing the murder of Beloved. Although Sethe was trying to protect Beloved, she took away her life and that cannot be undone.

She cannot bear to hand her children over to him after what she endured. Schoolteacher doesn’t think that he broke Sethe down mentally and physically. He had no previous knowledge that his nephew was mistreating his slaves as bad as he was. Upon entering the shed and witnessing Beloved’s death, Schoolteacher becomes irritated with his nephew’s wrongdoings towards Sethe. When describing the scene of the crime, Tony Morrison provides explicate and crystal clear images. She writes, “He knew she’d gone wild, due to the nephew who overbeat her” (p 176). Schoolteacher knew that something like this was possible if the slaves were pushed beyond their limits and were severely dehumanized. He asks his nephew “What would your horse do if you beat it beyond the point of education?” (p 176) and he tells him if he beat his dogs they wouldn’t hunt for him and would eventually inflict harm on him. This scene is one of the most powerful messages in Beloved and shows that even the strongest of women can eventually be broken down by slavery. Sethe lost the battle against the whites by killing her own kin in an attempt to protect her. In the advent of this catastrophe, a large crowd of former slaves show up around the barn and watch in awe. The sheriff is frozen and cannot control his body as he watches in astonishment. It is obvious that Sethe has broken down and lost a piece of her soul when she walks out of the barn. Tony Morrison describes Sethe’s appearance and the effect of her crime on her when she says, “ The whites in her eyes had disappeared and since they were as black as her skin, she looked blind” (p 177). At this point in the book it seems that all of the life has been sucked out of Sethe and nobody knows how to react to what has just happened. All of the black faces that crowded around the scene were in shock. The way Sethe carried Denver out of the barn rubbed everyone in a weird way as she seemed