Was Sethe’s violence to her children altruistic, sacrificial, or evil?
To the unassuming public, Sethe’s gruesome violence towards her children—harming three of them and killing one—would undoubtedly be considered murder. But as Morrison exposes Sethe’s mind, heart and emotions, her intentions are evident.
She killed Beloved to save her.
… from Sweet Home, from slavery, from any pain.
While certainly unnatural, strange and disturbing, Sethe’s intentions can be weirdly understood. But did Sethe truly save her daughter, her Beloved, by killing her? That answer, clear as mud, I’m sure will be debated forever.
In my opinion Sethe’s act was altruistic in the sense that she loved her child so much, she was willing to sacrifice her love and her daughter, to prevent her from experiencing the horrors that she faced at Sweet Home. And while it is understandable that a potent combination of destructive pain, temporary insanity, loneliness and the past prompted Sethe to harm her children, I still question the necessity of her act. Aren’t there other options: couldn’t she have run away with her children to hid? What bothers me even more is Sethe’s lack of regret when reflecting on that horrible day. While she initially suffers in pure ignorance and denial of the reality of Beloved’s apparition, when she finally recounts the story to Paul D, she shows no remorse. She sincerely believed she did the right thing by killing her daughter. How can it be the right thing? I found myself agreeing with Paul D when he reacted to the story with “You’ve got two legs Sethe, not four” indicating the presence of some sort of beast in Sethe that prompted the killing. But from Sethe’s perspective, that beast inside of her was love- passionate, “I’ll do absolutely anything for you” kind of love. Her immense love for her children transformed into a subhuman creature. (Similar to the instance at Sweet Home when Schoolteacher is teaching his nephews about “blacks” and tells them to write “human characteristics” on one side and “animal characteristics” on the other.
This realization led me to the conclusion that,
Love is not always beautiful, but it is never ugly.
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