In the novel “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, each character faces their own hardship and struggles to get to the point where they are at. There are many moments in the story that can impact the story in a major way, it would change how each character would live. One of these moments that would majorly impact how the story would be written is when the schoolteacher comes into the Garner house after Mr. Garner had passed away.
After the schoolteacher comes into the Garner house, he brings his two nephews with him and soon after they steal Sethe’s milk. We learn of that when Sethe is talking about it with Paul D years after it had happen.
“…The milk would be there and I would be there with it.” “Men don’t know nothing much,” said Paul D, tucking his pouch back into his vest pocket, “but they do know a suckling can’t be away from its mother for long.” “Then they know what it’s like to send your children off when your breasts are full.” “We was talking ’bout a tree, Sethe.” “After I left you, those boys came in there and took my milk. That’s what they came in there for. Held me down and took it. I told Mrs. Garner on em. She had that lump and couldn’t speak but her eyes rolled out tears. Them boys found out I told on em. Schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it made a tree. It grows there still.” “They used cowhide on you?” “And they took my milk.” “They beat you and you was pregnant?” “And they took my milk!”
In this scene Sethe is talking to Paul D while she is making dough and Sethe starts talking about how important it was for her to give milk to her daughter Denver. Then she goes back into time to explain to Paul D what had happen to her when the schoolteacher came into the Garner house with his nephews. Sethe tells Paul D that she was taken to a barn with the schoolteacher and the two nephews where they held her down and raped her there.
This scene is important because it starts a big spiral of misfortune for Sethe for many years to come. After this happens to Sethe, she starts to lose many things that are important to her and this kind of thing that happen to her in such an early age would have effect on her and those around her. This would not have happened if the schoolteacher did not come into the Garner house and took advantage of the fact that he was in control over those that lived there.
Soon after this happen another impactful scene would appear in front of Sethe. The schoolteacher tried to take Sethe and her children to be taken as slaves. Sethe would respond to this by trying to kill her children, so that they would not have to live being a slave.
“…Right off it was clear, to schoolteacher especially, that there was nothing there to claim. The three (now four—because she’d had the one coming when she cut) pickaninnies they had hoped were alive and well enough to take back to Kentucky, take back and raise properly to do the work Sweet Home desperately needed, were not.”
In this scene Sethe was able to see the schoolteacher before the schoolteacher saw her and quickly gather her children into the barn. In the barn Sethe decided that it was better for her children to die then face the life of living as slaves. The schoolteacher finds Sethe in the barn after she had killed one of her children, while the other three had escaped and he quickly notices what Sethe had done. The schoolteacher could not take Sethe as a slave after noticing what she had done to her children because she was sick.
This scene is important because after experiencing being raped by the schoolteacher’s nephew Sethe yet again was faced with another hardship. To have to pick whether you like your children live as slaves or kill them so that they wouldn’t have to experience it, that is something that not one person would want to do. Sethe having to make this choice just tells how much her children were part of her life and the value they represent. If the schoolteacher never came into the Garner house, Sethe would have been living with her children in a peaceful life instead of having to make the choice of whether killing her children or letting them live as slaves.
After having to live with all this that happen to Sethe, the moment when she learned that her husband Halle, whom lived with her at the Garners did not abandon was an emotional moment for her.
“There is also my husband squatting by the churn smearing the butter as well as its clabber all over his face because the milk they took is on his mind [. . . ] I don’t want to know or have to remember that. I have other things to do: worry , for example, about tomorrow , about Denver, about Beloved , about age and sickness not to speak of love.”
In this scene Paul D tells Sethe about her husband Halle who she thought abandon her when they lived at the Garner house. Sethe learns that Halle did not abandon her, but that Halle went crazy because he was in the barn when Sethe was raped by the schoolteacher’s nephews.
This scene is important because Sethe thought the entire time that her husband abandoned her. Sethe was worried about Halle a lot because she did not know what had happen to her since she never got to see him. When she learned that he went crazy because of what he saw, she could come to the fact that Halle did not survive after seeing what had happen to her and did not blame him anymore for not being able to save their children. It also let a lot of burden off her mind because she did not have to think about what condition Halle was in anymore. Sethe also realizes that instead of letting out her emotions, she had been living with them all the time all stuffed up inside of her.
If the schoolteacher had never came into the Garner house after Mr. Garner had passed away these moments would have never happen to Sethe. Not getting her milk stolen would have never scarred or would have it have made Halle go crazy. Sethe would also never would have been presented with the choice of killing her children or letting them be sold as slaves. The schoolteacher not coming into the house would have changed a lot of what the story would have become.
