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 clearly been implied/confirmed to be the baby's ghost, has been shown to both hate and love Sethe. She tries to attack her at times - for example, the choking incident - but she also doesn't want Paul D near her, which can potentially be interpreted as a form of selfish love. I believe that this is Morrison's way of telling the reader the moral stance that she takes on Sethe's actions. Beloved hates the fact that she did what she had to do, but at the same time understands it was out of love and it was to save her. If her action was entirely wrong, I believe that Beloved would have displayed no signs of affection towards her. Likewise, if her action was entirely good, I believe that Beloved might not have even haunted the house in the first place, much less come back and try to hurt her. The duality between love and hate in Beloved's behavior is telling us that it was a necessary action and that it was both right and wrong.
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...
Hey Seyed. I agree that this question of morality is interesting, which is why I also wrote a post about it. In my post, I came to the conclusion that Sethe's decision is the most strong, loving decision someone could make in that scenario, even though it still not be morally right. It was a completely unselfish act, but it was done at the cost of a life. I don't really have a definitive answer to this question, except that Sethe did what she thought was right, despite how horrible the act she had to do was, and I respect her for that.
ReplyDeleteI think your post is interesting, and I definitely struggled with this part but in the end I kind of came to the conclusion that I am in absolutely no place to judge or honestly even wonder if what she did was ethical because I have never and will never be in her position. She did what she had to do to protect her child even if it caused everyone pain.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is really similar to my takeaway. While I can understand both sides, of being too horrified by the fact that she could commit the act at all to be able to forgive her, and also understanding that is was a response to the world around her and would have never happened had she not been put in the situation by other people, I do think that we can't ever really understand. While other characters in the book went through similar traumas and responded differently, Sethe did definitely give at least Denver, and very likely Howard and Bugler too, a better chance at life than they would have had if schoolteacher had brought them back. Anyway I agree that we're very far removed to be able to condemn or commend her either way.
DeleteHi Seyed, I especially agree with you in your statement that if we as readers in the 21st century try to rationalize (or not) Sethe's decision, this "leads to messy ethics debates, so I will leave that up to your individual moral compasses to decide". Honestly, I think that nobody is at the liberty to judge Sethe's decisions because we have never been in the position that she was in and there probably isn't any position that exists today that is at that level of a moral dilemma. You made a very good point in saying that, "The duality between love and hate in Beloved's behavior is telling us that it was a necessary action and that it was both right and wrong". Throughout the novel, we see Sethe struggle with the decision she made, but she ultimately knows that what she did and where she put her children was where they were safe.
ReplyDeleteI really like your interpretation that Beloved's behavior reveals a lot about how she feels about Sethe's decision. You described it in a great way: "the duality between love and hate." Beloved's hate shows that she thinks that Sethe is bad for killing her, but her love suggests that she also thinks that she's good for trying to protect her from Sweet Home. I didn't make this connection at first while reading the book, but after reading this post, it feels like a very important detail.
ReplyDeleteI agree with some of yours points, but I don't think the Beloved understood why Sethe did what she did, or even really made any kind of moral judgement on it. I think Beloved was approaching the situation like any small child would, on pure emotion. She loved her mother and wanted to be with her, but of course she was furious at her also. So I don't think there's much calculation there. However, I do think Beloved's emotionally charged, imprecise approach to the situation kind of matched my own initial reaction to the revelation - that's horrible... but I like Sethe... but that's horrible... you know?
ReplyDeleteI think that we can't really decide whether Sethe's act was moral since we can't ever understand what she went through. The idea that Beloved might have given some input by coming back is really interesting however, and I think it depends on how we see Beloved. If she really is the ghost of someone that died as a baby, it's hard to say that she would have any moral opinion on it - just that she knows her mother left her when she was a child and although she still wants to be with her - Sethe is her mother after all - she harbors some resentment. If instead we see Beloved as tied somehow to Sethe's guilt or memory, she could be representing Sethe's internal struggle with whether she made the right choice, a struggle she can't explicitly think about because that would mean she wasn't sure with her decision, which would probably destroy her.
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