Love 2

Sethe's decision to attempt to kill her children was a means to protect them from the horrors of a life of slavery. She based this decision upon her deep seated belief that she and her family would be reunited after death in a better place. Her position as a slave had taken so much from her; her freedom, her identity as an individual, and being made to feel as if she was not a human, and merely there to serve her masters. The slaves learned to fear love because it could be taken from them too easily. “For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit; everything, just a little bit, so when they broke its back or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you’d have a little love left over for the next one” (45). While her family was all together after arriving at 124 for the first time, she outwardly showed her love and her affection towards her children. But she soon learned that these feelings had to be guarded because of the fears of losing what little she had that surrounded her life. In reality Sethe never let go of the deep seated love that she had for her children. It was these feelings as well as her belief in a life after death that was the fuel that fired her decision to "protect" that which she loved by making the ultimate sacrifice, in her attempt to end her family's lives.

Later in the novel, when Beloved returns in human form, it is Sethe's love and guilt that drives her almost obsessive actions directed at her child. Sethe's consuming behavior toward Beloved seems to be pushing Sethe towards her own deathbed. In the end, after Beloved disappears, it is implied that Sethe is following in Baby Suggs' footsteps and heading toward a similar death. However, love once again shows its strength in the form of Denver's love for her mother, and her protective actions when Sethe is being overwhelmed by Beloved. Denver gains the courage to leave 124 in order to gain employment so she can support their family. It is through these actions as well as the love of other friends, such as Paul D, that we are given hope that Sethe will be nursed back to health.

Love

In general, love is a very difficult concept. Certain things that people do out of love confuse others. In the novel Beloved the concept and way love is shown is even more confusing to people in today's society because of the time period and cultural differences. Today's American society doesn't have situations that parallel some of the problems that black slaves and ex-slaves had to be put through. For instance, we don't have to worry about somebody coming to try to bring us back to a plantation and back into slavery. Since we don't have to deal with those types of situations we really don't know what solutions are morally or emotionally right. People criticize others for past mistakes or decisions, but hind-sight is always 20-20. If we were thrown in a similar situation do we really know what we would do? Would we try to save our loved ones by killing them, like Sethe tried to do? Or would we try and run, and possibly get caught? Or, even, would we just let someone like Schoolteacher takes us away without any struggle? We really don't know how we'd react in a situation like that until we would be forced to make that quick decision. And luckily for us, we will most likely never have to be put in a situation of that caliber.

Sethe's choice, based on love, to try to kill all of her children instead of them having to be put through slavery was a controversial decision. She wanted to protect them from the harshness of slavery, but is trying to kill them the best solution? Our view of making this tough decision is also very different from how slaves and ex-slaves would have felt, as I described before. The views of slaves could also vary tremendously. For instance, Paul D felt that what Sethe did to her children was awful and he couldn't understand why she would do such a thing. The reason why Paul D had such a hard time understanding her act is mainly because he had tried to do what most of the slaves of that time did; he tried not to hold anyone or anything too close to his heart. This fact also brings about another difference between the time periods and societies that the slaves lived in and that we now live in. In today's society, we are free to love whatever or whoever we want. The blacks during the time of slavery didn't have that comfort. They had to worry about how losing their loved ones would make them feel because they could easily, and did easily, lose their family. They were sold and separated without any regard to the feelings of the black slaves. The society in which people live greatly affects how they view and are able to show their love of people and objects.