#6_Psychic Death

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Feminist Lens

The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison's "Beloved" by Barbara A. Shapiro

Slavery can have a huge impact on people, leaving them with an emotional and mental affect. The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison's "Beloved" by Barbara A. Shapiro speaks all about the influences slavery has had on the world, especially in Beloved. The slaves were dehumanized and taken advantage of. Instead of being seen as human beings, these slaves were just objects/property to Americans. "Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was an other" (95). Even after African Americans were freed, they were still left with the inner thought of not actually being free.

According to Barbara A. Shapiro, “psychic death” is a major characteristic in Beloved. Psychic death occurred when Sethe killed her child in order to prevent her from being taken from Sethe and being killed in the future as an enslaved woman. Sethe’s explanation for cutting her child’s throat was “if I hadn't killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her" (200). It would have been a “similar fate”, says Barbara. She connects this to what Howard Guntrip says, which is; “the love-hunger and anger set up by frustration of this basic need must constitute the two primary problems of personality on the emotional level”. This is exactly what is happening in Beloved. When reading this book, we can see that Beloved resurrected either to get revenge from the rage Sethe left her with or to receive the love that she was never presented with when she was a child. Barbara also mentions a connection between Morrison’s Beloved and one of her other novels, "The first experience taught her there was no other that you could count on; the second that there was no self to count on either." (Sula). Sethe and Beloved both had difficulties relying on people throughout the entire novel. Although Sethe killed one of her children, she did love them. When Beloved came back, she loved Sethe so much that she would do anything to be really close to her mother and observe her every move.