#6 Slavery and Motherhood

04/30/15

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Lens: Feminist
Blog: Critical Lens Expert #2

Terry Paul Caesar has a very interesting outlook on motherhood and slavery. He calls the two "convertible terms". I would have never thought to put these words together as he did. He goes on to say that a mother could be a slave to her daughter just as a daughter could be a slave to her mother. This makes me think of mothers having to clean up after children and take care of them. They cannot ever leave just as slave life. A daughter could be a slave to her mother by having to obey anything she says or does. It is clear the Beloved makes Sethe feel as a slave. The sad thing is, Sethe doesn't even realize it. She is made to feel like she owes something to Beloved and that she must not stop doing everything she wants. She is trapped by her own daughter. There is also a sense of slavery in Beloved, when Sethe must kill her children. The protection she must give to her children during these awful times is scary. Sethe is so trapped by the love she feels for her kids that it is almost an obsession. This obsession is so strong that Sethe murders her child so they don't have to go into slavery.  All in all, I really enjoyed reading this article. It pushed me to think about ideas I hadn't really thought about. After that, I was able to make my own connections and observations. It is such a different outlook on the relationships between mothers and daughters as well as the relationship between the words slavery and motherhood.