Thoughts about Sethe's Secret

Although hinted at throughout the story so far, I was completely taken aback by the revealing of "Sethe's secret'; that she, in fact, did try and kill all of her children, and succeeded in killing Beloved. However, the trauma that Sethe has, and her reasoning for doing so, was almost more heartbreaking than having to read about the incident itself.

When Sethe is talking with Paul D, and trying to explain her actions, she refers to different parts of her life that led to this tragic moment in a fragmented way, referring to what she was doing as going around in a "circle". This "circle" is the same way that Morrison has chosen to tell her story, but this is the first time that a character acknowledges that they are speaking in this manner. 

It is easy to look at what Sethe did from a "modern" standpoint. That is, as a woman who had some sort of mental break, and decided to kill her children ultimately to "save them", I think viewing her in this way is missing the point of Sethe's character arc and her story.

When hearing about infanticide (the killing of a baby), society's first reaction is disgust and revulsion. The public immediately calls for the death of the killer, which a lot of the time is the mother. 

However, reading through these chapters, and learning about Sethe's change in character, leaves me feeling an incredible sense of empathy, understanding, and sadness for her. One thing that Paul D always has said about Sethe, was how dangerous it was for her (an ex-slave) to love her children as much as she does. This seems to be some sort of foreshadowing, as in the end, it was actually dangerous, as it led to the death of her child. 

The connection between slavery and Sethe's decision to try and end the lives she had created is incredibly strong. I think that the point of the book Beloved is to show what slavery did to people. This is incredibly important, as nowadays there are not African American slaves (in the sense of how it was back then- there is an argument to be made that mass-incarceration is "modern-day" slavery), to tell their story to the public. 

As a white Latina, I can feel unable to truly understand how horrendous slavery in America was. This is why I think that Sethe killing her child is important, as it shows the true horrendous effects of slavery on people, and what lengths it made people go to. Having a character like Sethe, or Denver or Paul D, characters that we as readers want to vouch for, do something as horrible as trying to take the life of another human being, makes us conflicted readers normally. However, because of the strong correlation between slavery and what Sethe has done, it makes me sad and angry more than anything because I see what slavery has done to Sethe and people like her.