explicitly states Margaret’s motivation for doing that: ‘The slave mother … killed her child rather than see it taken back to slavery’ (557). These slaves saw death a better alternative than slavery and for the love they had for their children, they preferred killing them than allowing them see the dehumanizing institution of slavery. The slave women have always suffered as an effect of slavery. They were robbed of every possession – even their motherhood. That is why Sethe’s act of destroying her own creation becomes the subject and order of controversies. Whether a mother has a right to stop the heartbeat of her child or is it a crime to put an innocent life to end? Such questions echo in the entire story. American public considered Margaret Garner and other slave mothers who killed their children as criminals. There are some other examples in the American history where mothers have killed their infants to take away the extra burden of slavery on them. Mary Montgomery for instance, escaped the plantation with her child but when she found it difficult to escape with a baby in tow, she left, “her sucking infant behind to die” (Drew 49).
In the novel, Sethe kills her daughter Beloved and Stamp Paid said she did it because she ‘was trying to outhurt the hurters’, she didn’t want them to have access to her children. He also said she did it because ‘She loves those children’ (243). The act of Sethe killing her own child is at first not easy to understand and cannot be