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MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotional
traumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
MABUNM08 | THIS WORDPRESS.COM SITE IS THE CAT’S PAJAMAS In Beloved, Morrison writes about slavery.He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotionaltraumas of slavery.
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SLAVE EXPERIENCES IN BELOVED Posted on June 9, 2013by mabunm08
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In _Beloved, _Morrison writes about slavery. He shows how slavery affected different people, men and women but in different degrees. When Morrison writes, her protagonist, Sethe, slong with her community are restructuring their lives after the long physical and emotional traumas of slavery. Through Sethe, Morrison “remembers” / reimagines the unimaginable; in the history of slavery. The experiences she brings to light include the situations in which male slaves were chained, locked in boxes, and characterized as animals; and experiences in which women slaves were sexually abused, beaten, disfigured, and killed. These experiences are shocking; they disturb the mind when one reads about them, and they trouble the surface of history in the process. Let us begin with Sethe at school. In exploring the systematic dehumanization of slaves, Morrison describes the experience of Sethe just outside a school. Passing nearby a school for white children, Sethe hears the school teacher teaching the students to put the human slaves and animals in one genetic line: “Which one are you doing? And one of the boys said ‘Sethe’…No, no. That is not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the left; her animal ones on the right. And don’t forget to line them up” (228). Then Morrison describes the experience of Paul D in relation to slavery. To reveal the profound dehumanization experienced by male slaves, Morrison examines the instruments of slavery found in the historical archives and then imagines their use. Referring to Paul D., Morrison writes, “When he turned his head, aiming at a last look at Brother, turned it as much as the rope that connected his neck to the axle of a buckboard …” (125).A slave on chain.
(
http://rapgenius.com/Schoolboy-q-yay-yay-lyrics#note-1607768)
Paul D was not only chained to fellow slaves but also locked in a box or dog shack: “Son a bitch couldn’t even get out the shell by his self…Paul D stopped and squeezed his left hand with his right” (86). Morrison’s description recalls the practice of packing slaves in boxes like goods because they had value only as commodities. Slaves were locked in boxes. (http://www.freedomcenter.org/underground-railroad/history/people/Henry-Brown)
The apex of Paul D’s torture involved the iron bit placed in his mouth. Morrison depicts Paul D’s trial: “And if Paul D could saw him and could not save or comfort him because the iron bit was in his mouth” (83). In fact, there was no way for the slaves to comfort each other because they were all experiencing pain and heartbreak. A slave fitted with an iron bit (http://usslave.blogspot.com/2011/09/slave-tortures-mask-scolds-bridle-or.html)
Again Morrison brings back the character Sethe. Sethe underwent different kinds of torture. Morrison gives an experience of Sethe where Sethe is planning to run away to escape mistreatments. She has already deported her children to where Baby Suggs stays. During her process of running, Sethe is captured and violated. Not only violated but also the school teacher’s nephew stole the milk from her body. This makes her hungry because she had kept this milk for her children. Sethe could not be silent in relation to these dehumanization done to her. She reports to Mrs. Garner what the schoolteacher’s nephew did to her. When the school master learned that Sethe reported his nephew’s abuse to Mrs. Garner, he was hungry to the point of beating Sethe regardless her situation of being pregnant by that time: “Whose baby that?…you don’t even know…Sethe raised up on her elbow. Lying on her back… The fire in her feet and thefire on her back made her sweat” (93). Sethe is also “raped” after she has given birth, In this instance the rape involves the stealing of her milk: “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 on em. Schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it made a tree. It grows there still” (19-20). Worse still, her baby is dead because of the mistreatment she has endured: “What’s that all over your dress? ‘. Milk’ you are mess. Sethe looked down at her stomach and touched it. The baby was dead” (97). Sethe has been undergoing different kinds of torture physically and psychologically. She has been beaten, raped, and the milk of her child stolen. She has been separated from her beloved children for a while. All these experiences torture her. She decides to kill her own children in the mind that she does not like her children to suffer the way she suffered: “Baby Suggs noticed who breathed and who did not and went straight to the boys lying in the dirt. The old man moved to the woman gazing and said, ‘Sethe.’ You take my armload and gimmeyours” (178).
Sixo’s death is symbolic and occurs in stages. Before his death, Sixo is badly tortured: ” Finally one of them hits Sixo in the head with his rifle, and when he come to, a hickory fire is in front of him and he is tied at the waist to a tree” (266). Sixo is hunted like a dangerous animal (266). During his torture and before he was killed, Sixo sings and laughs. He e calls seven-O: “…Sixo interrupts his laughter to call out ‘Seven-O! Seven-O!” (267). Singing, laughing, and calling seven-o could mean courage and hope. That he is dying but there is a hope for freedom of the black slaves. Her wife who was pregnant when Sixo is being torture, decided to leave because she wanted not to see the way her husband was being maltreated. When Sixo sings Seven- O most probably he was calling the name of the child in the womb of her wife. Then Sixo is shot and killed (267). In describing the murder of Six-O, Morrison shows that while the black slaves were mistreated, tortured, and finally killed, they nonetheless had a hope that one day freedom and equality would come. This became true when slavery was abolished and freedom granted to the slaves.Shooting a slave.
(http://www.understandingrace.org/history/gov/paradox.htm)
Morrison in his_ Beloved_ has narrated the real situation experienced by the black people during slavery in the Diaspora. She has turned to literature to evoke history to show how even literature itself suffered and how literature writers suffered because of their work. Freedom of press came later when many writers had suffered because of their works. Other works of the writers were burned and not allowed to be publicized. Because of this mistreatments to the writers, others abandoned writing and others destroyed their works.POST NAVIGATION
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