In fiction, the typical image of motherhood is that of a mother who adores and loves her children unconditionally. Yet when women write about the subject of motherhood, they complicate and criticize the standard motherhood mentality. When toxic dimensions, like slavery, interfere with motherhood, the issue of being a mother when her child could be taken away complicates motherhood. In Toni Morrison's Beloved, Sethe's love for her children drives her to attempt to kill them, although she only succeeds in killing one of them – an act that falls outside the realm of conventional motherhood. Sethe's decision could be seen as her becoming master of her children's destiny, thus taking on a masculine role such as that of a teacher. Due to the suppression of her traditional maternal choices as a slave and dehumanization, Sethe's love for her children became "thick" and distorted in her efforts to decide how her children would live. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Early on, Sethe and her children’s home, 124 Bluestone Road, is described as “…malicious. Full of baby venom. With 124 "full of venom", Sethe and her daughter Denver find themselves alone with the ghost of the murdered child after the death of grandmother Baby Suggs and the escape of Denver's brothers once they were old enough ( Morrison 3, 5-6). When the baby ghost shows up, it's with Denver playing games, but a disruptive force when Paul D arrives. Sethe, overall, is a good mother to Denver; she looks after her and takes care of her. In contrast, the way Sethe treats Denver like a child afraid to leave her home contrasts with the fact that Denver is eighteen. Both girls avoid their past, which enslaves them both in the present (Otten 83). The first part of Beloved further supports Otten's theory, asserting that Sethe's belief in "[her] future was a matter of keeping the past at bay." Beloved's presence disrupts Sethe's insistence on forgetting her past as a slave; Beloved represents not only the ghost of Sethe's murdered child, but also Sethe's past, which needs to be reclaimed and acknowledged, like the scars on her back. The whip marks represent a past that Sethe represses, but cannot forget. Brands are both “history and history”. (Peach 95, 132). Sethe's first introduction into slavery was not cruelty; she was given a choice between the Sweet Home Boys and the work she could do on the plantation. She chooses Halle and has four children, all of whom are biologically Halle's, setting her apart from the other slaves. The death of the plantation owner, Mr. Gardener, marks the end of Sethe's womanhood and motherhood. When he dies, the slaves are no longer individuals. Their heads were measured – a form of pseudo-science under Darwinism to prove that blacks were inferior to whites – men were forced to wear bridles and had their shotguns taken away, and families were separated, sold , whipped, hanged and witnesses witnessed their actions. colored schools being burned (Morrison 180, 193). The effect of the schoolteacher and his nephews disrupts Sethe's security and reduces him to the object of a slave. The “stealing” of milk from Sethe's breasts and the beatings she suffers from the teacher and her nephews remove the bond between mothers and their children and create a systemic form of slave breeding. Sethe's chances of accessing conventional motherhood andmotherhood were denied, as was her femininity, as she was considered and reduced to “reproductive stock”. (Peach 93) Sethe's decision to murder Beloved is said to be "to stop [the schoolteacher] in his tracks." His action was horrific to the point that the atrocities committed by the schoolteacher's nephews against the slaves of Sweet Home were considered "counterproductive" and "reckless" in comparison to the murder of the child.Beloved ( Otten 86). Motherhood, described as the archetype of femininity, no longer focuses on Sethe's desires, but on those of the patriarchy. In turn, motherhood is not defined by women, but created by the makings of men (Patton 125). Ironically, the teacher and nephews never allow Sethe's conventional maternal instincts. Peach further explains that Sethe's denial of womanhood and the formation of a maternal bond with her children resulted in her distortion of womanhood and motherhood. In an argument with Stamp Paid about punishment and God, Sethe describes herself as "a nigger woman" (Morrison 179). The impact of slavery on Sethe resulted in her no longer seeing herself as a person of significant value, but her classification as a woman could be seen as positive. However, her femininity is attached to her identity as a black slave woman. As Patton explains, slaves were not “to be troubled by family ties.” Additionally, slaves are not expected to experience maternal love. Baby Suggs, Sethe's mother, spoke of the domestic disturbances common among slaves: "men and women were moved like ladies... the nastiness of life was the shock... learning that no one stopped playing games ladies simply because the plays included [Sethe’s] children” (Morrison 29). In the lives of slaves, family and motherhood had different meanings because they were first classified as slaves. They are therefore at the mercy of their masters. Although Sethe's children are not sold – due to her actions and the flight of two of her children – she is separated from her own mother; she suffered the effects of slavery and the disorganization of families. Partly because of the disturbance, Sethe cannot maintain appropriate boundaries because her love is "too thick"; that thick love that leads Sethe to kill her daughter and attempt to kill her other children before the schoolteacher can capture them and return them to slavery. For Sethe, murder becomes a symbol of maternal love, but her actions seem unfathomable to others. Her extreme reaction is linked to her heightened experience of loss and parallels wanting to decide the fate of her children when she does not own them, much less herself (Patton). 126). Sethe dismisses Paul D's criticism of her love by saying she didn't have the right to make the choice for her children while citing what happened to her life and Sethe from Denver has a quick response to Paul D: She knew what it was like to be. measured, studied and mistreated by the teacher, and she did not want this life for her children and tries to justify her actions to Beloved by explaining that she acted out of love (Morrison 165). interpreted as Sethe possessing her children. In Sethe's eyes, her escape from slavery empowered her to love and mother in an unconventional way. As Patton says, Beloved celebrates Sethe's escape from slavery, but focuses on her maternal role. Motherhood becomes a way for Sethe to reclaim her identity and gender, but it suffocates her. Upon discovering Beloved's identity, Denver fears Beloved will leave her, but Beloved explains how she came back to remove the "iron circle" from Sethe's past(Morrison 101). Despite her claims, Beloved is a vengeful spirit. His resurrection forces Sethe to remember and return to her past, an act that consumes her with guilt as she begs for sympathy as she recounts how she suffered after Beloved's murder. As a result, the mother/daughter relationship paralyzes Sethe when her love for Beloved becomes all-consuming and parasitic. Instead of forgiveness, Beloved seeks revenge; she has already suffered from separation from her mother and therefore wants a reunion. However, Beloved seeks to find himself through death. (Fishing 127-128). With this, Sethe is trapped physically and psychologically in motherhood. Often, Sethe states that no one will love her children the way she does, but that her love is selfish. His love for Beloved at the cost of her health and his neglect in Denver benefit no one; Sethe and Beloved continue to fight while Beloved "demanded the best of everything". Although 124 Bluestone is described as calm, the anger and tension in the house isolate Sethe, Beloved, and Denver from their community (Morrison 239-241). However, it is O'Reilly who explains how Sethe's overidentification with Beloved prohibits either from being individuated. Psychologically, Sethe's association with Beloved as her and her mother arises from a "passionate desire to be mothered, to be a mother and a daughter" equal to her commitment to motherhood. Part of being a mother comes from learning from your own mother. Sethe's own mother, whom Sethe only remembers by her mark of ownership, was denied the right to bond with her; Sethe was breastfed by someone whose “job it was to do so.” In her innocence, she asks to mark her mother in the same way only to be slapped (Morrison 76-77). His mother's mark was that of ownership, the equivalent of writing "property" under her breast. Sethe loves her children enough to not only bring them milk that her mother could not make for her, but also to kill them before allowing them to be enslaved. Without a mother figure, Sethe began to love her children without understanding how they could be taken away from her. By attempting to kill her children, Sethe asserts her right to her children outside of her control as a black slave. Faced with her inability to be a traditional mother, Sethe believes that killing her children is the only way to protect them from the atrocities of teachers (Patton 13, 130). As a mother, Sethe made the choice to keep her children away from the horrors of slavery. In doing so, she makes the choice for her children. However, Sethe could not escape and ignore her consequences. As a tragic hero, Sethe defies her destiny, no matter how heartbreaking it may be. Because of this, Sethe's consequences are passed on to her daughter and she must find a way to atone and confront the choices she made for her children. By confessing her actions to Paul D, Sethe is proud of what she did and shows no remorse. As a mother, Sethe was doing what she believed was the right thing: protecting her children as if she had a legitimate right to them. Her actions tore her family apart, caused her to be shunned by the Sweet Home community, and established a co-dependency with her surviving daughter, Denver. Denver is, as a result, marked by her own mother's history of infanticide (Patton 131); she drank Beloved's blood with her mother's milk, her only friend was Beloved in her ghostly form who she played with while she was "waiting for daddy", she loves while fearing her mother because she knows that Sethe would have killed her if she hadn't. She has not been arrested and is isolated to such an extent that she “will not leave the court” (Morrison 165, 205). Sethe, in the end, manages to.