The Power In The People - A Close Reading by Madison Schmidt

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Critical Lens: Feminist

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"After situating herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head and prayed silently. The company watched her from the trees. They knew she was ready when she put her stick down. Then she shouted, "Let the children come!" and they ran from the trees toward her."
     "Let your mothers hear you laugh," she told them, and the woods rang. The adults looked on and could not help smiling.
     Then "Let the grown men come," she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among the ringing trees.
     "Let your wives and your children see you dance," she told them, and groundlife shuddered under their feet.
     Finally she called the women to her. "Cry." she told them. "For the living and the dead. Just cry." And without covering their eyes the women let loose."

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While missing Baby Suggs, Sethe takes a moment to remember a more spiritual time of her life and recalls how involved her mother in law was in the community. She vividly describes how Baby would go to an open field, which she refers to as The Clearing, and preach to the community's men, women, and children alike. The way she would do so, however, was very unique. She would not preach to them about how blessed they were, or instruct them to avoid sin and  devote themselves to Jesus Christ - she would tell them to love themselves and love hard. Love their bodies. Love their flesh. Love their hands. Love their hearts.

The significance of what she is preaching is extremely powerful. After generations of slavery, these people are now free. When Baby Suggs is standing with them in the clearing and telling them to acknowledge their value, they have likely never been told that they are worthy and important. They have never learned how to own themselves, for they have always been treated as property. Most importantly, they have never learned to love themselves. Baby Suggs wants them to know and be able to exercise self-love.

While what she is saying is so incredibly striking, Suggs's commanding presence is what really calls people's attention. The quote above is describing he way Baby would call the people's attention before sharing her heart with them via her powerful words. Following a short, silent prayer to herself, she would begin with the children. She would ask them to express themselves via laughter. Next the men would follow, with their dances, and then the women with their tears.

The way Morrison portrays Baby Suggs as such a strong female figure is apparent in many instances of the story, but here in particular. Her commanding nature in this scene is what allows her to really capture the entirety of the peoples attention. She is able to completely compel children, women, and men alike, to join her in the clearing and express incredibly personal emotions of theirs as they laugh, cry, and dance together. In a society where women, especially black women, are often treated dismissively especially by men, Baby Suggs's powerful and captivating nature is spectacular. Her words draw in every type of person, and with ease. She does not have to ask twice for the children to laugh, for the men to dance, or for the women to cry - even the men quickly comply. With her unthinkable power, she is able to create a moment of complete vulnerability for each and every person in the community. Morrison uses Suggs in this scene to represent the power within a women, that we have unfortunately seen suppressed time and time again, but at other times can see shine through and enchant peers and superiors alike. 

Mother Enslaved to Daughter - An Abstract Definition of Slavery By Lindsey Bogott

Beloved by Toni Morrison is a rich novel, full of many different interpretations that a multitude of academic scholars have analyzed and simplified to make the plot more relatable. One such scholar was Terry Paul Caesar who dove into Beloved by finding and understanding the correlation between slavery and motherhood. After defining mothers, daughters, and slavery, he came to the conclusion that slavery can be found with a mother having control over her daughter but can also happen when a daughter has such a powerful influence over her mother that can be interpreted as a relationship between master and slave.  

His conclusion fascinated me because when one thinks about slavery, they think of physical chains, abuse, and property; however he brought upon the abstract definition of slavery between mother and daughter which reveals that Sethe was never free from slavery, but was held by her faults of committing infanticide. Her crime created bondage, invisible chains, linked to her master, Beloved. Beloved, being the haunting remembrance of the past, had control over Sethe that only Sethe could break, yet she kept on obeying her master, frightened of what would happen if she upset her daughter once again. Even though masters tend to be classified as white and male, Beloved is no different from a white man even though she is black. This is because the white schoolteacher is the reason why Beloved controls Sethe, since she was sacrificed in the schoolteacher’s presence. As a result this makes Sethe still under control of the white superiority, even though she is technically a free black woman.

Terry Paul Caesar goes on to explain the symbolism of being a mother, stating that because the daughter comes from the womb of the mother, the daughter is in fact an extension of the mother’s life and wellbeing. As a result this can create tension since the mother wants the daughter to obey and love her, and wants the daughter to fulfill all of the objectives the mother was unable to achieve. Yet because of this, the daughter wants to break away and tell the mother how she wants to be treated instead. This is what happened to Sethe since she felt guilty for sacrificing Beloved, feeling the need to pay her daughter back by obeying and loving her. Sethe does this so much that she ends up losing control over Beloved and ends up becoming Beloved’s “daughter”. This power struggle is seen throughout the whole novel until the end when Beloved finally leaves her, yet leaves Sethe too weak to build her life again, very similar to how slaves felt when they finally escaped from their master after years of imprisonment.   

In conclusion Caesar’s interpretation of slavery and motherhood sheds light on how family bonds can be defined deeper and in some cases be paralleled to slavery. Morrison’s novel is not merely historical or racial, but is meant to be reveal how relationships can control us in remembrance of our past and can confine us in nonliteral terms.

Filling In Blanks - A Response and Reflection by Madison Schmidt

From a young age, I have been aware of the terrible mark slavery has made on American history. In school, I was taught about the terrible divide that was present between races and learned about disturbing way African American people were belittled entirely as human beings. However I was not taught exactly to what extent this was true. Through learning about Sethe's experience as a slave, and a female in the 19th century via her horrifying memories from Sweet Home, I have taken away a lot about what it meant to be a women during the era of slavery in our country.

The traumatic experiences described by Sethe in terms of her physical, sexual, and emotional treatment while living on the plantation are uncomfortable, to say the least. While reading the first hundred pages of Beloved, many moments have made me cringe. The most terrifying part of this, is that these are things that real people endured for generations and generations. The treatment of slaves during this era extended far beyond disrespect, and lingered in an intense zone of dehumanization. For women, this was often sexual. They were used as objects, and expected to submit to a man's sexual fantasies and desires, as Sethe describes in her traumatizing flashbacks. They were put in situations where saying "no" would mean digging themselves into a deeper hole, and possibly risking their life altogether. This is what teachers previously failed to disclose about the era, likely because of just how uncomfortable to truth really is. 

In a time where women were women are perceived as inferior to males to begin with, the role women in a state of servitude is just that much more pathetically insignificant.

It is hard to compare the treatment of women during the era of servitude to today's society, however there are some things that I am able to draw parallels between. Today, as a female, I feel the pressures to be a certain way - dainty, sensitive, compliant. I am aware of the inequality that still prevails. The thought of having to endure this, in addition to living in a state of servitude under a group of people who do not even acknowledge my humanity is what is horrifyingly unimaginable. As women now, we are fighting for equality. Women then were fighting to simply survive. 

Paul D and Chain Gangs - A Close Reading By Lindsey Bogott

“When all forty-six were standing in a line in the trench, another rifle shot signaled the climb out and up to the ground above, where one thousand feet of the best hand-forged chain in Georgia stretched. Each man bent and waited. The first man picked up the end and threaded it through the loop on his leg iron. He stood up then, and, shuffled a little, brought the chain tip to the next prisoner, who did likewise. As the chain was passed on and each man stood in the other’s place, the line of men turned around, facing the boxes they had come out of” (Morrison 126).

Toni Morrison’s critically acclaimed novel Beloved brings up the issues of African-American lives during their life of slavery and post slavery. Some of the talked about events are difficult to digest because they bring to attention the brutality many faced during that era, many of which modern day students have never heard about because the stories are never taught in order to maintain America’s history in a positive light. The passage above is an excerpt of Paul D’s flashback to the time that he spent in a prison camp’s chain gang in the South that was used to further punish misbehaved slaves.

In the passage, Paul D starts to describe the day in the life of a chain gang, revealing his difficult and brutal past by using vivid diction. The diction of the passage allows the readers to get a sense of how inhumane the conditions were as he uses words such as “bent”, “waited”, “threaded”, and “shuffled”. These words reveal how inhuman it was because of how physically tiring the connotation of the words give off. Then the phrase, “one thousand feet of the best hand-forged chain in Georgia stretched” further broadens this feeling and gives the first context to the reader that they are being brought to the attention of chain gang life in the South.

As a blogger looking through the new historical lens, I was shocked when reading this passage considering I thought I had been taught about every aspect of slavery in school, however I had never learned about prison chain gangs. This caused me to investigate whether Morrison’s/Paul D’s depiction of time spent in a chain gang was accurate, and unfortunately, it is very accurate.

Chain gangs were used in the Southern states to remind African-Americans slaves who they were and where they came from. They used the same chains as they did on the slave ships that transported them from Africa to the United States. Every day they would line up before the officers and call out role then get to work. The work would be very similar to plantation work and public service work such as fixing roads and building railroads, however they worked under more cruel conditions, subjected to beatings and whippings, occasionally forced to perform oral sex on the white officers, as they were already chained. These prison camps lasted during slavery and even after slavery “officially ended” still being used today in modern prisons under less brutal conditions.

As a result Paul D’s flashback of using vivid diction and syntax reveal the horrors of these chain gangs. It brings up a topic that is usually forbidden, however must be discussed, and the way he explains his past allows us, as the readers, to get insight and feel sympathy.

Objects - Close Reading by Gennesis Ayala

“Sethe lay on her back, her head turned from him. out of the corner of his eye, Paul D saw the float of her breasts and disliked it, the spread-away, flat roundness of them that he could definitely live without, never mind that downstairs he had held them as though they were the most expensive part of himself. And the wrought-iron maze he had explored in the kitchen like a gold miner pawing through pay dirt was in fact a revolting clump of scars. Not a tree, as she said  (25).” -Beloved

In the quote above, Sethe and Paul D just had their first sexual encounter. Just a few minutes before this, Paul D looked at Sethe as if she’s the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He caressed and kissed the scars on her back that Sethe was once told was in the figure of a tree. In this passage, Paul D doesn’t see Sethe the same way he did just a few minutes prior to their sexual encounter. For over 18 years, Paul D has wanted to be with Sethe. Unfortunately for him, Sethe never showed signs that she wanted him and instead she married Halle. Now 18 years later, Sethe is a single mother and Paul D see’s his chance again.

Paul D finally got what he had wanted for over 18 years, to be intimately involved with Sethe. After Paul D got what he wanted from Sethe, he decided he was no longer interested in her. Following their sexual encounter, Paul D “disliked” Sethe’s body. He decided he could “definitely live without” her because he expected more from her. From this quote, I feel as if Paul D had high hopes on the intimacy between him and Sethe, but the sexual encounter was way below his expectations so now, he wants no part of it because he was let down by her. The author also expresses Paul D’s feelings by saying that Sethe’s breasts were the “most expensive part of himself.” By referring Sethe’s breast as a part of “himself,” I believe that the author is implying that Paul D see’s Sethe as if she belongs to him.

Overall, my general perspective using the feminist lens, is that Sethe is portrayed as an object that Paul D has always wanted, but after finally having her, he felt dissatisfied with what he got and wanted nothing more to do with her. This can be seen as an example of how women were portrayed during this time. Woman were seen more as desired objects than actual respected humans.

Are We All Driven By Unconscious Desires? A Close Reading By Sierra Nelson-Liner

Sethe had given little thought to the white dress until Paul D came, and then she remembered Denver's interpretation: plans. The morning after the first night with Paul D, Sethe smiled just thinking about what the word could mean. It was a luxury she had not had in eighteen years and only that once. Before and since, all her effort was directed not on avoiding pain but on getting through it as quickly as possible. The one set of plans she had made--getting away from Sweet Home--went awry so completely she never dared life by making more.

Yet the morning she woke up next to Paul D, the word her daughter had used a few years ago did cross her mind and she thought about what Denver had seen kneeling next to her, and thought also of the temptation to trust and remember that gripped her as she stood before the cooking stove in his arms. Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on something?

-Beloved Chapter 3 pages 45-46


This passage is derived from Beloved when Sethe wakes up from her night with Paul D. It touches upon some of Sethe’s internal conflicts and desires. One that is illuminated is her hesitance when it comes to making “plans” for her future. Sethe spent her childhood and the majority of her life being a slave. As a result she was trapped, abused mentally and physically, and separated from her friends and family. This hesitation to accept that her life could be better can be interpreted through psychoanalysis.
Many of the concepts and theories of psychoanalysis can be derived from Sigmund Freud’s life works. “Papa Freud”, as my AP Psych teacher told us, dedicated his life to understanding the human mind and the behaviors that come with its understanding. He is considered the father of psychology. He  believed that the psychoanalytic therapy he used with his patients could remove information from their unconscious. (Further information about Freud’s life can be found here.)

Through his research, Freud concluded that the human psyche was split into the id, ego and superego. The id is present at birth and is driven by all  desires, wants, and needs. The ego is the set of “rules” you follow defining what is appropriate for you to do. The ego develops from the id. It strives to satisfy the id’s desires in a realistic and socially acceptable way. The superego is like the justice system; forcing you to think about what is the right thing to do.

Furthermore, the superego provides guidelines to suppress unacceptable urges present in the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The conscience contains thoughts of our present moment. The preconscious contains something you can easily retrieve from your mind that you might not be thinking right away. The unconscious contains hidden meaning filled with repressed memories. This lead Freud to believe that behavior is based on unconscious drives that could either be destructive (for example greed) or necessary for survival (for example hunger or self preservation).

In this passage it is clear that Sethe is struggling because her defense mechanism of repressing all of her memories is getting in the way of her happiness. In this instance, her unconscious desires can be interpreted to be finding a place in the world where she can trust those around her. As a result she is left thinking about what would happen if she really did stop repressing her emotions and thoughts to instead “count on something”. This raises the point that memories banished to the unconscious do not disappear. Instead, they continue to influence our behavior in major ways. Sethe needs to realize that in order to move on it is the realization and forgiveness of what has happened to her that will allow her to free her mind. It is interesting how now, after all she has been through to keep those memories contained, Paul D has made her reconsider the foundation of her current life and her future.

Men Are Dogs... Or So We're Taught - A Close Reading by Madison Schmidt

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Critical Lens: Feminist

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"...But maybe a man was nothing but a man, which is what Baby Suggs always said. They encouraged you to put some of your weight in their hands and soon as your felt how light and lovely it was, they studied your scars and tribulations, after which they did what he had done: ran her children our and tore up the house." (Morrison 26)

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In this scene from chapter two of Beloved, Paul D has just arrived at 124, Sethe's home. After being intimate with one another, Sethe and Paul D are left in a particularly uncomfortable moment. This time gives them both a chance to reflect on their intimate pasts with other people as well as their individual experiences at Sweet Home. For Sethe, this evokes many memories. She specifically recalls a lesson her mother in law, Baby Suggs, taught her about men and the way they can be, what she refers to as, 'dogs.'

The lesson that Sethe has been taught is very sad in many ways. She has been encouraged to trust the man's "hands" with her "weight" which [he] will supposedly hold "tight and lovely."  The word choice here, indicates that the woman has a weight, or burden to be carried by the hands of a man, of which [he] will be be able to make [her] suddenly and miraculously feel free from, simply because of [his] manliness. It is made to seem as though a woman must confide in a man in order to feel secure and free, which is incredibly demeaning to the female figure as an individual.

She proceeds to mention that once the woman has confided in the man, just as she has been taught she is supposed to do, [he] will simply use this closeness as a way to "study" her "scars and tribulations" and essentially abandon her. What is terrifying, is that Sethe has been taught that [he] (any man) will surely use the trust and confidence that has been built between the two as a way to examine her every woe, and use the findings as an outlet, leaving her broken and without hands to hold the weight she had previously relied on [him] to hold. This sends women the message that after putting everything into a man's hands, he will surely use it to leave her broken and alone, proving himself "nothing but a man."

The idea that is highlighted in this passage is one that women are (sadly) taught still, even in today's society. These lessons that we teach women from such a young age about needing to look, act, and be a certain way for men, and men being "dogs," regardless, are extremely counterproductive to humanity. They push women to sacrifice self-reliance in order to put all of their "weight" in a man's hands, and teach young women that men's hands are unclean and should not be trusted. We should not be teaching our women to rely completely on men, or really anyone, in the first place, however we should also not be teaching them that all men are bad. This promotes a very negative, man-hating mindset. Feminism is about humanity. Humanity is about everybody. These lessons are beneficial to nobody.