This is a scene of a woman killing her baby girl at a woodshed. The woman can be assumed as Sethe because of her swollen foot. Behind by the open door, a young girl who is wearing a black dress with lace is Beloved with three vertical scratches on her forehead. Beloved, who is an embodied spirit of the murdered child, is watching her mother killing herself. Beloved is crying by the door but she cannot do anything about the murder because she is already dead. The point of view of this picture is Beloved, who is watching the scene in the back. Beloved in the back symbolizes that even though she knows she was killed by her mother, she does not know why Sethe killed her and how she felt when she was killing her own child, because she is looking from the back. Also in this picture, Sethe’s face is not fully shown, which also means that Beloved is not able to understand the feeling of Sethe when she was killing her child. Because Sethe killed her baby girl and the only thing that the murdered baby knows is the fact that she was killed by her mother, she comes back alive to her mother as Beloved with full of venom and anger.

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In a novel “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, Sethe is a black slavery woman who suffers from the memory of her killing her own daughter. The daughter comes back to Sethe as Beloved, embodied spirit of the murdered daughter with venom and anger toward her mother. The moment of Sethe killing her daughter has tragic ramifications throughout the entire novel. Because of the infanticide, Sethe lost her two sons, Baby Suggs, the people in the town and the daughter Beloved. Without the occurrence of infanticide, the story would be totally different from the original novel.

When Sethe escaped from Sweet Home with her children, the four horsemen – schoolteacher, nephew, one slave catcher and a sheriff – came to the house on Bluestone Road where the runaway slaves were, including Sethe and her children. At first, the four horsemen thought they were too late to catch Sethe but they started to walk toward a shed when some other slave stared at the shed. “Inside, two boys bled in the sawdust and dirt at the feet of a nigger woman holding a blood-soaked child to her chest with one hand and an infant by the heels in the other. She did not look at them; she simply swung the baby toward the wall planks, missed and tried to connect a second time … “(Morrison 175). After Mr. Garner’s death, Sethe knew that unlike Mr. Garner, schoolteacher was same as other majority of whites, who can make the slaves to work, kill them, or dirty them. As she thought that she does not want their children to go through what she had been went through, she decided rather to kill their children by herself than to let it happen to the children. So she took all her children to the woodshed and killed her “Crawling Already?” girl, Beloved.

The fact that Beloved was killed by her mother led the entire story tragic that Sethe lost her sons and other people in the town. First, the baby girl who was killed by Sethe came back to Sethe’s house as a ghost. “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom.” (3) 124 is the house where Sethe and her alive daughter, Denver were living. Sethe’s sons, Howard and Buglar, left the house earlier “as soon as merely looking in a mirror shattered it (that was the signal for Buglar); as soon as two tiny hand prints appeared in the cake (that was the signal for Howard)” (3). Beloved was a baby when she was killed by her mother, so she returned to her mother as a ghost in the haunted house. If Sethe did not kill Beloved, the house would not be haunted with the baby’s venom. Because she killed her own daughter, people around her left her. For example, Howard and Buglar left the house not only because of the haunted house and the baby’s venom, but also because of the fact that their mother killed her own daughter and tried to kill them too. Also other black people in the town started to ignore the residents of 124.

Sethe killed her own child because she loved her and wanted to protect her from living as a black slave at Sweet Home – or anywhere in the world. In page 194, after Paul D found out that Sethe killed her child as she was escaping from Sweet Home, he said Sethe’s love is too thick. But Sethe replied to him that “Love is or it ain’t. Think love ain’t love at all … It ain’t my job to know what’s worse. It’s my job to know what is and to keep them away from what I know is terrible. I did that.” She told Paul D that she had to kill the children to keep them away from being slave, but Paul D said that decision was wrong. He added that “’You got two feet, Sethe, not four …’” Even Paul D who loved Sethe deeply in his heart, could not accept the fact that Sethe killed her own baby, and made him leave her.

Because Sethe killed Beloved her only alive daughter, Baby Suggs and Denver had to go through hardships as well. When Stamp Paid kept trying to get to 124 to talk to Sethe, he realized that he understood Baby suggs’ feeling too late. “The heart that pumped out love, the mouth that spoke the Word, didn’t prove or condemn Sethe’s rough choice. One or the other might have saved her, but beaten up by the claims of both, she went to bed” (212). Baby Suggs used to say the Word at the Clearing every Saturdays, but she refused to preach after Sethe’s act of infanticide. Also when Denver used to go to Lady Jones to learn to spell and count, she had to stop going to Lady Jones because of her mother’s past. Nelson Lord was a smart classmate, “who put a stop to it; who asked her the question about her mother that put chalk, the little I and all the rest that those afternoons held, out of reach forever.” Nelson Lord asked Denver the question about her mother’s infanticide out of curiosity, and she could not just laugh about it because Denver was actually wondering what happened for what reason. After that, she stopped going to the class and she became deaf because she did not want to hear the answer from her mother. Baby Suggs and Denver are important families to Sethe but she made them have hard time because of her past.

Lastly, Sethe’s act of infanticide made the murdered daughter to bear a grudge against her mother and return to Sethe as Beloved, the embodied spirit of murdered child. After Sethe found out that Beloved was the embodied spirit of her own daughter, she tried hard to explain how much she had suffered for her children for her whole life, but Beloved never listened. “None of which made the impression it was supposed to. Beloved accused her of leaving her behind. Of not being nice to her, not smiling at her. She said they were the same, had the same face, how could she have left her? And Sethe cried, saying she never did, or meant to – that she had to get them out, away … that her plan was always that they would all be together on the other side, forever. Beloved wasn’t interested. She said when she cried there was no one. That dead men lay on top of her. That she had nothing to eat” (284). Even though Sethe tried to explain and make Beloved understand what she went through and what she meant, Beloved was too young to understand her mother and the murder. She already had inveteracy deep inside.

There are moments or occurrences that have ramifications throughout the story in novels like Beloved. In Beloved, the moment when Sethe killed her own daughter made the tragic of the entire story and if this did not happen the story would be totally different than the original story. Because the daughter was murdered by Sethe, people in the town ignored Sethe and her family for a long time, and Sethe lost her sons and grandmother Baby Suggs, and the most important person, Beloved.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved: A Novel. New York: Knopf, 1987. Print.

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The need for possession is a reoccurring theme in the book Beloved by Toni Morrison that gives readers an insight to the turmoil and pain experienced during the time of slavery. This theme is ironic because as a slave, the characters in the story possessed nothing, being the possession of someone else. There is a need to own something of their own even though they do not even hold possession of themselves. This can be seen in the pivotal passage in Beloved that occurred on pages 192-193 when Paul D finds out what exactly happened in 124 and what Sethe has done in the house. The story of Sethe actually begins with the killing of her own daughter in order to protect them from going back to the Sweet Home under the watch of the schoolteacher. Without this killing, there would not be a haunted house that confined both Sethe and Denver. The ultimate need for possession can be seen with Sethe’s infanticide in order to keep her children for herself.

Sethe justifies her murder by saying, “I stopped him, I took and put my babies where they’d be safe” (Morrison 2004: 193). In this pivotal quote, readers can see that Sethe went to ultimate measures to claim what is hers. She wasn’t willing to give away that claim to the schoolteacher. And now, Beloved will always be hers only, and no one else. Only in Sethe’s possession would her children be safe from the schoolteacher and his nephews. This was a pivotal part of the story because it’s what drives all the events that happens afterwards while also explaining the turmoil of slavery to be in possession of someone else and how this turmoil makes you want to hold on even more to that little bit that you do own.

This sort of possession and love was chastised by Paul D when he says, “your love is too thick” (Morrison 2004: 193). Toni Morrison also explains that, “suddenly he saw what Stamp Paid wanted him to see: more important than what Sethe had done was what she claimed” (Morrison 2004: 193). To claim something is dangerous in the slavery world because their claims are never forever and that is why Paul D calls it too thick. Throughout the story, we see the characters trying to claim something. They could never claim anything because they were slaves, they couldn’t even put a claim on themselves. Paul D, Denver, and Beloved wanted to claim Sethe’s love for themselves. They’ve never known what it feels to hold a claim on something and they each have this thirst to finally claim something.

Another claim that can be seen was Sethe’s continuous claim to her daughter after she has died. Sethe gave “ten minutes for seven letters” (Morrison 2004: 5). This stood out to me a lot because it is the first look at how much she loved her children. It never explicitly tells the reader what exactly this line means. But it is implied that she was willing to give the engraver ten minutes of sexual pleasure in exchange for the 7 letters of ‘Beloved’ to be engraved on her baby daughter’s tombstone. It brings to mind the lack of independence Africans had before and after the Civil War. Names are independent for each individual. When her daughter died, she is only referred to as “Beloved” in the story and never by her actual birth name. I feel that ‘beloved’ is a word of ownership. You have to be someone or something’s ‘beloved’. In this way, her daughter will always be hers and will always stay with her.

The possession Sethe claims of her daughter can also be seen when Paul D complains about Sethe babying Denver. When Sethe apologizes for Denver, Paul D says, “It means she has to take it if she acts up. You can’t protect her every minute. What’s going to happen when you die?” (Morrison 2004: 54). In response, Sethe says “Nothing! I’ll protect her while I’m live and I’ll protect her when I ain’t” (Morrison 2004: 54). In this quote, Sethe explains her claim to Denver and how even if Sethe can’t protect Denver physically in person, she will still be able to protect her. This passage foreshadows Sethe’s claim to Beloved and what measures she will take to protect her children. This is why she exclaims that she will protect her daughters no matter what, dead or alive.

No matter how much Sethe tried to claim what is hers, such as her children, she was still claimed by her past as a slave. Paul D says, “It occurred to him that what she wanted for her children was exactly what was missing in 124: safety” (Morrison 2004: 193). In a way, I feel that the author Toni Morrison is telling the readers that no matter how hard Sethe tried to run from the Sweet Home and cruelty of slavery, she will never be able to be a true free woman. She is still claimed and possessed by her past even though she is no longer a slave. This resonates with the readers when thinking about racism and prejudice in the world today. Even though slavery has ended and people are advocating for equality, there is a chance that it may never be achieved no matter how hard we try. Africans will always be possessed by the turmoil their ancestors must’ve felt in slavery, and probably their own turmoil of racism.

The theme of possession is a struggle that can be seen throughout the story between Sethe’s hold on her children and slavery’s hold on Sethe. Of course the beginning of this turmoil is the beginning of slavery, but when Sethe tries to kill all her children in order to put a claim on them, readers are able to understand the pain and thought process of people in the time of slavery. Infanticide can be seen as an exit to slavery, a sort of blessing or safety for a mother. Sethe believes that death is the only escape for her children to the cruelty of slavery. This allows readers to see the negativity of slavery besides what the naked eye can see such as physical abuse. Slavery is seen as something that is worse than death, something that could affect their kin several generations down. We are still experiencing the aftermath of slavery whether it is racism or prejudices. This brings to mind the question: when will slavery’s possession on civilization ever end?

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