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The Morality of Sethe's Actions

In Beloved, we see Sethe make an impossibly difficult decision between killing her kids and letting them go back to slavery. Throughout the book, we see the impact of this event not just on Sethe and her family, but also strangers who learn about it - understandably so, of course. The idea of a mother killing her child is horrendous, and since they don't have the context we the readers do, it is understandable that they would find her actions repulsive. However, even with knowing what we do about Sethe and the terrible situation she was in, did she do the right thing? Outside of the story, this would come down to a multitude of factors. For one, which is more desirable, death or slavery? Another point would be does anyone have the right to choose that for you? Of course, this leads to messy ethics debates, so I will leave that up to your individual moral compasses to decide. What is more interesting is what the story says about Sethe's decision. Beloved, which has been pretty ...

The Significance of Dana's Arm

At the beginning of Kindred , we are thrust into a confusing situation with Dana explaining that she lost her arm on her last trip. Obviously, this does not make sense at first, but by the end of the book we see the events leading up to the loss of her arm. But the question remains of why she lost her arm, both from a narrative perspective and from a story perspective. In class, we talked about how Butler herself said that she had Dana lose her arm because she couldn't come back whole from an experience in that time period. It needed to have some sort of permanent mark on her character, and she decided to represent this by her losing a limb. However, I believe that there is another interpretation. Her losing the part of her arm that was grabbed by Rufus represents her cutting off part of her past/bloodline. Throughout the entire story, she has had a kinder view of Rufus because he is her ancestor and because she has seen him grow up. But when she decides to kill him, she is putting...

Coalhouse Walker

Coalhouse is an extremely interesting character in Ragtime . He is a fictional character, yet is portrayed as being more real than some of the historical figures depicted in the book. The narrator speaks of his past as if it is something you could find in an encyclopedia despite his fictional status. But arguably the most interesting part of his character is the morality behind his actions. He starts an entire revolution due to the events that occurred after his encounter with the firemen. While many people say that the main motive behind his actions wasn't just his car, it can't be denied that his car does seem rather pivotal to his motives. Part of his demands has consistently been to turn over Conklin to him for his own personal justice, and the second is to have his car back in pristine condition. As a result, I feel like this affects the morality of his actions to some extent. But let's assume first that the car wasn't a motive at all. Even in that case, I would s...

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