Blog Post #6_Abby

Sethe is a very complex character who struggles everyday to forget her past. She is a free slave however, her past keeps on hunting her present, and it seems like she will never be free. Even though she was fortunate enough to escape from slavery. Sethe has suffered a lot and all her painful memories, especially the death of her daughter Beloved, have not gone away. She is reliving her past throughout this book, which reveals to us how much the slaves suffered. Additionally, she had to be apart from her children and family members for heartbreaking amounts of time. Throughout the book, Sethe’s identity is destroyed because of slavery and she is physically, emotionally, and mentally destroyed by her past.

The main focus of Beloved at this point is the materialism from the white slave owners in the sense that they only cared about money and treated the slaves very badly. And more specifically the class struggles that slaves were put in. Through the Marxist lens, we can argue that all characters in Beloved are victims of the historic slavery into which they were sold and are unable to escape from. Based on the Fugitive Slave Act, slaves could be taken back if they were in good conditions. “Right off it was clear, to school teacher especially, that their was nothing left to claim.” (Morrison 175) The only reason why school teacher did not take back Sethe and Denver was because of their poor physical  conditions. 

During this time society thought it was okay to treat colored people as animals and not as humans and to treat them like property and not like normal American Citizens. I believe that everyone has the right to be treated equally and not better or less than everyone else. Every individual has flaws, and they should not be denied the right to certain things because of their skin color. Today, many there are many tensions between races for example Hispanic/ Latino and White Americans. Where they feel like Mexicans are taking their jobs away. But in reality they are willing to get paid minimum wage and do certain jobs that other people are not willing to do. Immigrants come to this country to look for a better future, and they have to go through discrimination and even poverty.