“And if she thought anything, it was No. No. Nono. Nonono. Simple. She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them. Over there. Outside this place, where they would be safe.”
When Sethe sees the schoolteacher approaching, all she could think about is no, no and no. She refuses to let the schoolteacher take everything that is precious to her away from her. She collected all the parts of her, Beloved, Denver, Howard, and Buglar and tried to keep them safe by bringing them to a place where the schoolteacher can no longer reach them.
Sethe says that her rationale for doing what she did was ‘simple’. As if it was the only rational and reasonable thing to do. To push them over to the other side where it is safe. The only safe and rational place to Sethe is death. Once her precious, beautiful, and fine children die, they cannot be harmed by the turmoil of slavery, abuse of the schoolteacher anymore. Outside of the story, outside of slavery, readers would think that no matter what killing your own children is crazy and inhumane but Sethe makes it simple and rational.
This quote gives readers an insight of how inexplicable slavery is and how it dehumanizes a person beyond belief whether it is the slave owners or the slaves. It makes people do unimaginable things such as killing your own children because you love them too much. In order to stop her children from experiencing the pain that she’s experienced, she’s will to kill them to bring them to a better place.
