The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, Baby Suggs And Sethe

Frederick Douglass, Baby Suggs and Sethe were all former slaves that are all trying to find their place within a new society. Throughout their journey, their pasts shape the lives they have after slavery, and affect their succession to claiming their identity. Beloved and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass display that former slaves needs safety, help given to them, and need to let go of the past to claim their identity.
Frederick Douglass is born into slavery; he grew up on a plantation and attempted to escape multiple times. Although his course to freedom is not easy, he eventually finds safety with help offered to him. After Douglass was enslaved, he realises knowledge is power, and his thirst for knowledge will eventually help

Through Halle buying her freedom and settling at 124, she slowly gains her identity after being a slave. When Baby Suggs first got to 124 Bluestone Road, Cincinnati, it is the first time she could feel. The narrator said, “Halle, of course, was the nicest. Baby Suggs’ eighth and last child, who rented himself out all over the country to buy her away from there” (27). Halle work during the weekends for many years, buying his mother freedom, because Baby Suggs is legally free, she did not have to worry about her enslaver taking her back to the plantation, giving her a sense of safety as there is no sense of fear she had to bear at 124. Being an accepted part of the community helps Baby Suggs advance in assimilating her identity. Beloved states, “124 had been a cheerful buzzing house where Baby Suggs, holy, loved, cautioned, fed, chastised and soothed” (102). Although Baby Suggs is a former slave, the freedom Baby Suggs experiences alter her personality to a loving and welcoming character that has a loving and open-minded characteristic. Baby Suggs is clearly someone that the community adores, as she is a pillar of support emotionally for Cincinnati’s black

It is understood that Douglass and Baby Suggs succeeded in claiming their identity through the inclusion of their community, a sense of safety and letting go; however, Sethe did not have the privilege in (of) encountering the positive side of a former slave which led to the unsuccessful passage to her identity. Sethe is haunted by her past, because she was unable to push past her difficulties leading to her stand in the story now. She escaped from Sweet Home unlike Baby Suggs who is legally freed. Schoolteacher’s nephew sexually assaulted Sethe which Frederick and Baby Suggs both did not experience, slavery itself is emotionally tough as well sexually assaulted Sethe. Murdering her daughter and excluded from the Cincinnati’s black community attributed towards Sethe’s low self-esteem. When Sethe is faced with a situation where going back to Sweet Home is her only option, she decided to murder her daughter, Beloved. Sethe says, “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” (194). Sethe feels as though the death of her daughter will be better than going and experiencing slavery, and is determined to not let Beloved suffer it as well. This led to her making an ill-informed decision. At the end of Beloved, Sethe accepts the fact that Beloved is her daughter and the guilt