Theme in Race/Cultural Lens

Beloved by Toni Morrison is a complex novel that explores the issues of race, gender, class, and the history after Slavery. Through the novel, race is seen in various parts of the story. It has a big impact on the characters development and the people surrounding them. Race and Slavery tie in with each other because their own race made them who they are and how they as looked as in this particular time period. During these times, African Americans were looked at differently as all the other different types of races. The whites were always more superior in than them and the African Americans were put to work for them. Through the novel, Morrison conveys the theme of Slavery and how their past comes back to haunt them.

    Sethe did have a reason for killing her own daughter. Many people thought it was the wrong thing to do, but to her she was doing what's best for her daughter. When explaining herself to Paul D she says, "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" (194) . This quote is telling us that the reason she killed her daughter was because she did not want her to go through slavery. She did not want her to go through any of the hardships that Sethe went through like harassment. She was trying to protect her own daughter. Now that beloved is here, the past comes to haunt her and she is reminded of all the experiences that she has had. Reminding her of what she did to her daughter. A huge symbol to reveal this theme of slavery is Beloved herself. She is a symbol because it shows all the cruelty that happened in the past that Sethe does not want to acknowledge.

    In an article that I read about beloved called, “Hush, Little Baby-Ghost: The Postcolonial Gothic and Haunting History in Toni Morrison’s Beloved” by Ruth Van Den Akker, also states that slavery is one of the themes in this novel. A quote from the article is, “As Punter explains in “Arundathi Roy and the House of History”, history and its presence in the present is a “recurrent sense in Gothic fiction (...) the past can never be left behind, (...) it will reappear and exact a necessary price” (2003: 193)”. This quote is saying that Sethe’s past won't be able to be forgotten about. She won't be able to escape it because Beloved is here and it reminds her of the past. All of the experience of Slavery will be in her mind as well and how it affected her as person.