“Beloved, she my daughter. She mine. See. She come back to me of her own free will and i don’t have to explain a thing. i didn’t have time to explain before because it had to be done quick.” page 236
Sethe is remorseful yet happy that Beloved came back into her life to fill the gap that once was lost. She thinks its best to talk with Beloved about why she killed her and what would have happened if she didn’t.
I would refer this part of the passage with the abject of “primal repression” that Julia Kristeva uses as an example in one of her writings “Power”.
Sethe, for years had to live with the trauma of losing her daughter by killing her or saving her from slavery. One which, Sethe thought Beloved would not survive if she was captured by school teacher and his team. During such act Sethe had to decide the best way to save her kids from enduring what she went through. Now Beloved is back, Sethe feels obligated to express the reasons why she had to killed her children. This is a form of suppression and repression. Whereby she had been dragging for years that without realizing she was suppressed of her doings. Sethe has been carrying a empy feeling for years of that of the death of her children. She wants to show express the love that she has for Beloved before she killed and now that Beloved is back.
For years, Sethe wanted to give up knowing that she killed three of her Kids, but she knew she had to persevere dispite her circumstances.
