It is not unusual for a writer to include one or more scenes of violence in a novel. In good literature, the violence is not gratuitous. Using Beloved, analyze the scenes of violence that Morrison uses in her story and explain how they enhance the meaning of the work.
When you think about violence in Beloved, you think of the scene in which Sethe killed Beloved, as it is the catalyst that set off the events of the novel. When Morrison talks about Beloved's scars, those are her purpose of foreshadowing. But when the actual scene comes along, and the scene of the murder is laid out for the readers, it is because Morrison wants us to understand the severity one of her central themes. Beloved, in part, represents the horrors of slavery coming back to haunt the present and as such, the readers need to be able to understand all the emotions that accompanied the idea of slavery. To do this, Morrison laid out a tragic scene, one where a mother, desperate to protect her children from slavery, decides that death is a better alternative and brutally murders her child, and attempts to kill the other three. In this scene, we can understand the desperation and the fear of former slaves in its entirety, not just the vague concept that those with no experience carry when they read a novel about slavery. This scene is the reason why readers cannot decide to condemn Sethe or sympathize with her plight,and that is purposeful.
ReplyDeleteIs the baby she kills a sacrifice?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteViolence in "Beloved" is a hard topic to discuss because there are many ways of interpreting it. For example the killing of Beloved could be seen as an act of love or selfishness. By looking at the varying nature of Sethe, it can be said that, she is a women who chooses to love her children but not herself. She kills the baby, because in her mind, her children are the only part of her that have not been soiled by slavery. By showing this mercy she commits the murder. In addition, I think that Morrison includes the gruesome detail of the mistreatment Sethe experienced by Schoolteacher to give the reader insight on Sethe's motives and why she did what she did because no mother wants to see their child go through the same pain and suffering that they went through. This part in the novel is a heart-wrenching one because it leaves the reader with resentment toward Sethe but at the same time sympathetic because she had no other choice. Or did she?
ReplyDeleteIt is inevitable that one of the most grotesque scenes that will be mentioned in this post will be about the murder of Beloved. Agreeing with Sarah, Sethe did this purely because of the strong love she has for her children. Throughout the novel, various flashbacks are described in which slavery caused trauma. The schoolteacher scene was absolutely heartbreaking to read about, especially realizing that Halle watched it all. Sethe felt so vulnerable and broken after this incident, it’s understood that she would never wish this on any of her children. Sethe’s back is also described as looking like a “chokeberry tree.” The chokeberry tree, as we know, represents all of the years she spent suffering through slavery. It was the physical reminder of the pain she had to endure. Another flashback, didn’t come from Sethe, but from Paul D. There were very rough slavery punishments that he is traumatized with, such as the chain of men, as well as whippings. With the knowledge of all the scarring that has to do with slavery, it enhances what family really means to Sethe. Sethe was willing to go to extreme measures to do what she truly thought was best for her family, even if that meant murder.
ReplyDeleteI agree that you certainly cannot overlook Paul D's experiences.
DeleteThe violence used in this novel is used to highlight the tortures and horrors of slavery. The scenes of violence help the reader really understand what slaves, especially women, went through. A violent scene I can think of is when Morrison described mentions Sethe's gang rape. This scene gave the reader insight to the horrible things that slaves had to experience, particularly women. Morrison also gives the reader images of Sethe killing her baby in the middle of the novel, which I found to be the hardest to read. She does this to let the reader realize how traumatic slavery is to a person and what it can lead to. This scene brings to light the idea of death being better than slavery, which is an important point Morrison makes throughout the story with Beloved's murder.
ReplyDeleteThe particular violence involved with Sethe being raped by men at Sweet Home is also significant to family aspect that plays a role in the meaning of the novel. Through Sethe's actions and reasonings, the reader knows that Sethe will do anything to protect her children and give them the best life possible which mean avoiding anything that has to do with slavery. When Sethe is discussing the rape incident with Paul D on page 20, he asks her questions such as "They used cowhide on you?" and "They beat you and you was pregnant?" and Sethe responds both times with "And they took my milk!". Feeling angry, I think Sethe took offense to this act of violence because of the way it interfered with her providing for her children. This is another reason why a form of violence due to slavery makes Sethe so bitter towards anything relating with slavery. Because this repetition is mentioned early in the novel, it could foreshadow Sethe's emotions and mentality behind killing Beloved. She was adamant about not letting any white man take anything from her or her children again!
DeleteViolence in Beloved is uncanny and appears in a lot of the chapters of this novel. One scene in particular that probably comes to most people's minds would be when Sethe kills Beloved in the shed. This part of the book was particularly hard to read and produced an emotional response from the reader. Morrison most likely included this in the novel to show the realities and the choices women had to make during slavery. Sethe's choice to kill Beloved, in a twisted way, shows how much she loves her children. She was willing to do anything for them so that they wouldn't have to endure the horror of slavery like she did.
ReplyDeleteIn multiple instances in the novel, Morrison uses gruesome acts of violence to describe her meaning of how the past will forever physically and mentally haunt the slaves. For example, a scene not necessarily described but referenced was Sethe being whipped and raped. She is physically left with the tree shaped scars on her back, displaying how slavery will haunt Sethe forever. The most important and violent scene is by far the killing of beloved, as Sethe is described to be drenching in her daughters blood, slitter her neck. This scene enhances the novel in how it projects its overall meaning and establishes Sethe's characterization. She was so mentally and physically haunted and hurt by the struggles of slavery, she killed her daughter so she would not have to experience this pain. It reveals the meaning as the struggles of slavery forever effecting lives. Sethe's motherly instinct is also revealed, however the author displays to readers how her mentality is not in the right stages to support children at that time.
ReplyDeleteIs the baby a sacrifice for the others to survive?
DeleteIn "Beloved," Morrison includes specific scenes of violence. She does to emphasize, just as Steph said, the horrors of slavery and its effects on those who are enslaved. Morrison does so by discussing the physical abuse Sethe endures, as her back is described as a chokecherry tree after she was beaten severely. Morrison also furthers this idea of violence and slavery through the scene in which Sethe murders her daughter in the shed by means of slicing her throat open. The reason as to why Morrison included this scene was because Sethe had to protect her daughter from ever living a horrific life of slavery and the only way to achieve this was through engaging in an act of violence, which was the killing of her daughter.
ReplyDeleteThe violence Morrison included in Beloved was to strengthen the importance of the central theme in the novel. While authors may not commonly include such severe and gruesome acts of violence, it acts to support the importance of how the events in the past have affected Sethe. She has lived through the horrors of slavery and the treacherous journey that she faced on her way to 124, and they have forever altered who she is as a person. She fears what she was faced with during slavery and will do anything, even murder her child, to keep them from experiencing what she did.
ReplyDeleteViolence is what helps to convey to readers the brutality and torment involved with slavery. Scenes such as Sethe being raped represent how many slaves had their bodies taken advantage by in a violent manner. Other scenes such as Sethe being whipped shows that slaves endured physical abuse that would stay with them forever. For example, the whips engrave a scar that resembles a chokecherry tree on Sethe’s back that will forever remind her of that moment. The scene of the men taking Sethe’s breastmilk shows that people violentally took everything from slaves, down to a infants source of food. Most importantly, the scene in which Sethe cuts her babies throat with a saw shows that the brutalities of slavery were so terrible that it made slaves make drastic decisions such as killing their child to put them out of their misery.
ReplyDeleteThe violence in this novel is meant to get reactions and stronger feelings from the reader; without the vivid descriptions or implications, some scenes might be misinterpreted. Two scenes that come to mind are when Sethe was raped and when she killed Beloved. Without the imagery of how Sethe's back looked and what the rape was like, it would be difficult to understand how incredibly tough her journey to her kids were, and the reader also might not understand exactly why Halle never came for his family. This scene showed just how broken Halle had become, and how strong Sethe was for continuing with her plan to escape. Then comes the scene where Sethe kills Beloved. The description of this act, although gruesome, proved how strong Sethe's love for her children is, and perhaps more importantly, how strong her hatred of sweet home and schoolteacher is.
ReplyDeleteI think that these violent scenes can show a lot to a reader. They show vulnerability and damage and all the things you wouldn't know about a character without these grotesque images. Especially in a book during this time period, it can truly show you the horrors and scarring that slavery can do, physically and mentally. Being raped wasn't even the worst thing that could happen to a slave, it just touches the surface. But in this case, it shows her pain, it shows all of the slaves' pain. I agree with the others that this helps us to understand why Sethe killed Beloved. All a mother wants to do is protect her child from the cruelties of the world, and at the time that was the best way for her to protect her child, the same way some mothers choose to have an abortion because they don't want their child to have a bad life. Morrison uses the rape scene to show the depth of pain Sethe suffered from.
ReplyDeleteThroughout Beloved, there are more scenes than can be counted that depict violence. One of the first is the scene when schoolteacher’s pupils rape Sethe and milk her breasts that are full for her “crawling already?” child (Beloved). From the beginning, white folk are already depicted stealing everything they can from African Americans: labor, rights and dignity. One day Morrison writes that schoolteacher has his pupils draw Sethe “half animal” and “half human” to show her true self. In this way, Morrison explains that white folk viewed African Americans as half animal and half human, and themselves as completely human. However, Morrison’s depiction of Sethe’s rape by schoolteacher’s white pupils tells us that white folk have an animalistic and inhumane side that negatively impacts African Americans, enhancing the meaning of the work. In addition, Morrison depicts Sixo’s death by fire after his failed escape from Sweet Home to demonstrate how futile it was for slaves; there was rarely an escape from slavery. White folk drove enslaved African Americans to the edge, making them feel the need to run away and showed no mercy if they caught them. This is why Sethe slits Beloved’s throat: she knows that there is no escaping slavery or hope for a good life while enslaved. So Sethe tries to kill her whole family so they’ll be together in a better place, away from schoolteacher and Sweet Home. These acts of violence in Morrison’s novel enhance her message that the conditions African Americans faced while enslaved by white folk were horrific and changed them for the rest of their lives.
ReplyDeleteSo when I think of the violence in Beloved there are two main scenes that come to mind. I think of when Sethe murdered Beloved, and then when Sethe was raped back at Sweet Home. Both of these scenes are extremely important to the meaning of the novel. First the fact that Sethe was willing to kill her children to keep them from slavery helped to highlight the negative effects that slavery had on people and how deep the scars went. Then the scene where Sethe is abused, and has her milk taken from her, truly shows the horrors of slavery, reinforcing the meaning about slavery and why Sethe killed Beloved later on in the novel. Without these acts of violence the novel would not have portrayed how awful slavery truly was and would not have hit the reader as hard as it certainly hit me.
ReplyDeleteThe main scene of violence that stands out to me is the murder scene of Beloved. Sethe murders her own daughter, Beloved, to protect her from the cruel acts of slavery. Beloved’s ghosts then haunts the house of 124 throughout the novel. This action illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole as it shows the devastations that result from slavery. Sethe has lived through a tough and demanding life as she has worked as a slave at “Sweet Home”. She then finds a way to escape the cruel acts of slavery however, the School Teacher and his nephews go to Sethe’s house. Sethe attempts to murder all four of her children in order to prevent them from living their lives as slaves. However, she was only successful in murdering her daughter Beloved by slitting her throat before she ran out of time. This death illuminates the struggles and devastation slaves and their families experienced.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the novel, Morrison incorporates acts of violence into his work, but not for the sake of creating gruesome pictures in readers’ minds. The most violent scene for readers to digest would agreeably be the murder of her daughter. At first we start the novel not knowing why the house is haunted, but later find out it has been since Sethe slit her throat, in an attempt to save her from the brutalities and cruelty Sethe endured for the majority of her life. This scene most directly adds to the novel by allowing readers to get a feel for the type of person Sethe is. With quick judgement you may think she’s evil and absolutely vicious, however looking deeper you can see how much she truly cares about her family. She didn’t kill her daughter out of hatred or malice, rather to save her from experiencing anything similar. Additional scenes of violence included events that happened at Sweet Home, including the torture Sethe put up with as a slave, as well as the gang rape she experienced. These acts show Sethe’s strength, and how she moved on from her past to prevent these ideas from repeating themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe first hint of violence that has a significant impact on the story is Sethe killing Beloved. Sethe makes what seems like a selfish decision, and that is to kill Beloved so she never has to become a slave. She is not selfish for her actions because she cares more for the wellbeing of the children than herself. Sethe has experienced so much hatred and abuse during her life as a slave. It is only normal for a mother to not want their children to go through the same harsh experiences that they have. Beloved’s return and scars bring about the message that the memory of slavery will always be with them. She is a reminder for every hardship and instance of abuse that slaves had to endure. It enhances the meaning of the work in this way, giving a deeper meaning and memory to the hardships of slavery. Sethe was basically forced to do what she did in order to try to change the harsh future children would have to take part in, much like slaves were forced to work for the white man. Life after killing Beloved is her punishment to herself, just life slaves are punished for not complying to the white man.
ReplyDeleteSethe killing Beloved in the shed, its what the story is basically about, so it is a prime example of violence in the novel. Morrison using this in the novel helps to show just how bad the times were. Sethe is a slave, she was beat and raped on the plantation Sweet Home, she's been violated most of her life there. Pain that some would never wish upon their worst enemy, was what the slaves on sweet home went through. Sethe killed her child, because she did not want anyone to go through the hell she has gone through as a slave, she knew that the baby was better off dead than living in that hell she was in. It enhances the meaning of the work, by giving the reader an idea of how bad slavery was then and what people would do trying to escape it.
ReplyDeleteThinking of slavery, life was not easy. There was no break in the day for a slave, and mercy was never granted. Beloved is a novel focusing on slavery and the effects of it. Violence was first shown during the murder of Sethe's baby, Beloved, done so by her own hands. She felt Beloved's life wasn't going to amount to slavery and saved her from the hardships. Sethe's "tree" on her back, really scars from a brutal whipping, are forever a reminder of her past. The brutal raping that took place at Sweet Home is yet another case of gruesome, disgusting, vulgar violence yet so normal to a slave. These things make readers think "oh my goodness" but to Sethe, it's just another day. It opens your eyes about slavery.
ReplyDeleteViolence shaped the life of Sethe in Beloved. Being a slave immediately held promise for an unpleasant lifestyle, but Sethe endured emotional, mental, and physical beatings during her life as a slave. She was beat by her slave holders. This act of violence would shape her as a person. Seth became a stern and very strong woman. She was not the light hearted care-free young woman she once was after her beating. This abuse scarred her. It made her so strong she was able to make a decision to kill her children in order to save them from pain. This decision may or may not have been right but it says something about the way Sethe views violence. To her it would better to be dead than to deal with the violence of slave life.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of violence in the novel is to show the horrors of slavery and express the gruesome events that individuals had to experience during this time period. For example, when Sethe killed Beloved it showed violence being a better alternative than being a slave since Sethe did not want her daughter to become a slave. Death seemed to be a better punishment compared to slavery. Another example of the tortures of slavery is the scene where Sethe was raped. This was primarily in the story to express the gruesome events that took place during the time period. Another example of violence is Sethe having scars on her back. The scars will forever be on Sethe and the memories of her being whipped to obtain those scars will not be forgotten as well. Morrison purposefully placed those scenes of violence in the novel to show the overall meaning of the book which is the gruesomeness of slavery.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most vivid and important scenes of violence in the novel is when Sethe kills her daughter. The entire sequence of events is described in immense detail. This scene of violence contributes to the overall meaning of the story because this event sparks other occurences throughout the novel. For example, the ghost at 124 haunts Sethe due to her violent action. Additionally, Beloved is reincarnated and physically and emotionally wears down Sethe. Therefore, the violence in which Sethe kills her daughter to prevent her from experiencing slavery is important to the novel as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI believe Morrison incorporated violence into her work to emphasize the central theme of the book, the fact that one cannot escape slavery despite being free. This is evident because one of the most violent scene in this novel is Sethe murdering her own daughter, Beloved, to spare her from the horror that is slavery. By killing Beloved in an attempt to be merciful Sethe caused a life of misery foe herself as she had to live with the guilt and burden of not only her actions but also with the physical and emotional burdens from slavery. It was Sethe's intent to kill beloved to prevent her from living a life of hardship emphasizing the message that one can never truly escape slavery.
ReplyDeleteMorrison uses many scenes of violence in her novel to enhance the meaning of the work. The main scene of violence that stands out to me is the murder scene where Sethe slits the throat of her own daughter, Beloved. In this scene, Sethe kills her daughter and attempts to kill the rest of her children in order to save them from the horrors of slavery. She doesn’t want her children to have to experience what she experienced in slavery, so she decides to save them by killing them. This scene enhances the meaning of the work as a whole because it brings light to the devastation that is caused by slavery and further demonstrates the horrible quality of life that African Americans experienced during this time period.
ReplyDeleteViolence is a reoccurring topic that appears throughout Beloved to showcase the themes of the novel. Two scenes that stick in my mind after reading the novel are Sethe’s rape scene and the killing of her child. Morrison uses the rape scene to show how the slaves were treated and how the actions will always linger in their thoughts. The descriptions and comparison to being milked like a cow shows how degrading the acts were for Sethe and others who were experiencing things like that during those times. The act of Sethe killing her baby is the most important to the plot and meaning of the novel. Sethe’s actions to kill her daughter show how she did try to get the best life for her children even if that meant killing them before they had to go through some of things that Sethe went through such as getting whipped and raped. The violence throughout the novel shows the horrors of this time and how the cruel actions of slave owners left a lasting imprint in the lives of slaves and generations after.
ReplyDeleteMorrison describes scenes of violence quite frequently throughout Beloved, the purpose being to clearly evoke the viciousness of slavery. She uses Sethe and Paul D’s memories to develop scenes that depict rape, torture, and murder of slaves. By bringing these distant memories back to the present, Morrison is showing that this long lasting violence still has a profound effect on its victims and witnesses. The rate at which violent scenes appear throughout the novel are meant to emphasize that slavery was indeed a cruel system, no matter how much people want to pass it off in a different life. Morrison also uses violence as a cycle. One of the most notable examples of violence is when Sethe kills her daughter Beloved. This action was triggered when Sethe saw Schoolteacher coming to the house, and she immediately did what she could to prevent herself and her daughter from being brought back as slaves. If she had never experienced life as a slave, felt and witnessed the cruelty of it, Sethe probably would never have committed such an act. But the experiences she had been forced through her entire life were a direct cause of this act. This could be Morrison’s way of delivering a message that violence only breeds violence.
ReplyDeleteViolence in a recurring element in Morrison’s piece Beloved. These acts of treacherous violence are most notably showcased in the scene in which Sethe killed beloved. The gruesome description of how she killed her child made for a frightful reaction in the readers, but this was not it’s sole purpose. The purpose of Morrison’s work was to showcase the horrors of slavery and these extreme acts of violence, bringing the severity of the time period to light. The fact that sethe made the choice to kill her youngest daughter of the fear of her living a life of pain and suffering, shows the terrifying state of the time period they were living in.
ReplyDeleteThere are a many violent scenes in Beloved. These scenes are meant to portray the reality of slavery. Being a slave was far from easy, it was far from being relaxed. There are so many harsh violent truths about Slavery and Morrison wanted to incorporate that with these scenes. The flashbacks of the violent scene represents how it all haunts Sethe. Morrison wanted to express the horrors of slavery and this is done through these recurring scenes.
ReplyDeleteOne obviously violent scene in Beloved that shaped the entire novel was when Sethe killed her oldest daughter by slitting her throat. At first hearing about this scene and even reading this scene, I was completely mortified and confused on why a mother would do this horrible thing to her child. But, I soon realized Sethe was just trying to protect her children from going through the suffering and pain of slavery, that she had endured. However, not many people in the town saw her actions that way, and caused her life to be changed forever.
ReplyDeleteWithin “Beloved”, the main scene of violence is when Sethe murders Beloved in the shed. Although this murder only occurs in a couples scene in the novel, this violence and the effects that it has on Sethe travels throughout her life. The reason that Sethe killed Beloved was to save her from slavery, but the killing of her represents the sacrifice Sethe. This violence is there to represent slavery, and all that it did to Sethe. Sethe was raped, tortured, and treated unfairly as a slave and the murder is there to show how all of this had an impact on Sethe’s life. She was willing to do anything to save her children from the life that she had, even if it meant killing her own children. The violence may not be easy to read or to accept as readers, but Morrison had to include it in her novel to show how the slavery effected Sethe and her actions, and how even now, after being free for many years, her past still comes to haunt her.
ReplyDeleteThe obvious violent scene in this novel is the one in which Sethe slits the throat of her own child to save her from the hardships that slavery encompasses. This bloodshed is what the entire plot of the novel revolves around. The violence exhibited by Sethe that day is never forgotten, as it haunts her through the character of Beloved and the scars she has. Personally, I view this act of extreme violence as selflessness. To drag a blade across your own blood’s neck takes an immense amount of love and care that it hard to understand. I am no mother, so while I cannot fully relate to Sethe, I can appreciate her motivation and intentions. To Sethe, her child was quite literally beloved, so it takes a great deal of strength and courage to do what she did. Also, violence is displayed through the scars Sethe carries on her back. These wounds act as a branded reminder to her that she will always be a slave. The cruel memories she has are not only embedded in her mind, but also deep in her skin.
ReplyDeleteI think that Morrison uses violence in two different ways throughout the novel. I think she shows the violence of slavery, which is more obvious, physical violence, and I think that she shows the violence that was still occurring in the live's of ex-slaves. It is hard to determine which violence is more brutal. Morrison includes the violence of slavery when she discusses the use of the bit, the women that had been kept as sex slaves. the whippings on Sethe's back, and the underground cell that Paul D lived in. The most defining scene of violence in slavery was the scene where Sethe recalls being raped and having her milk taken by the schoolteacher's sons. It is one sided violence, violence against an entire race, violence that is physically daunting and murderous. It is the type of violence that leaves physical wounds and scars. Morrison also discusses violence post-slavery. This is more like mental violence, violence in Sethe's head that daunts her and takes over her life. While the scene of Sethe killing beloved as a baby is physical, it is an entirely different motive. Sethe is so mentally scarred that the action of killing her children to save them from the type of violence she endured seems rational. Her violence came from love and was desperate. The violence of slavery came from hate and was a power trip.
ReplyDelete