Beloved

Beloved Toni Morrison’s, Beloved, is a complex narrative about the love between mothers and daughters, and the agony of guilt. “ It is the ultimate gesture of a loving mother. It is the outrageous claim of a slave.” These are the words, of Toni Morrison, used to describe the actions of Sethe, the central character in the novel. She, a former slave, chooses to kill her baby girl rather then let her live a life …

…and another 133 years of political abuse. When presented the notion that Sethe, not her children, is her own “best thing”, her reply takes form of a question, “Me? Me?”(273) Sethe has realized that she has loved her children too much, and herself not enough. WORKS CITED Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Maine: Thorndike, 1987. Louisiana Black Code of 1865 Hart, Albert Bushnell. Slavery and Abolition. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1906. Clinton, Catherine. Half Sisters of History. Duke University Press, 1994.