Beloved 2

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251). In this respect, her act is that of love for her children. The selfishness of Sethe's act lies in her refusal to accept personal responsibility for her baby's death. Sethe's motivation is dichotomous in that she displays her love by mercifully sparing her daughter from a horrific life, yet Sethe refuses to acknowledge that her show of mercy is also murder. Throughout Beloved, Sethe's character consistently displays the duplistic nature of her actions. Not long after Sethe's reunion with Paul D. she describes her reaction to School Teacher's arrival: "Oh, no. I wasn't going back there[Sweet Home]. I went to jail instead"(Morrison 42). Sethe's words suggest that she has made a moral stand by her refusal to allow herself and her children to be dragged back into the evil of slavery. From the beginning, it is clear that Sethe believes that her actions were morally justified. The peculiarity of her statement lies in her omission of the horrifying fact that her moral stand was based ...

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ankle ropes and wells. Simple: she was squatting in the garden and when she saw them coming and recognized schoolteacher's hat, she heard wings. Little hummingbirds stuck their needle beaks right through her headcloth into her hair and beat their wings. And if she thought anything, it was No. No. Nono. Nonono. Simple. She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them thought the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them"(163). Sethe's frustration is a product of her contradictory reasoning. She views her children as an extension of her life that needed to be ...

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