Blog Post #5 - Slavery and its Psychological Effect

Critical Lens Close Reading - Psychoanalytical Lens

"In addition to having to use their heads to get ahead, they had the weight of the whole race sitting there. 'Whitepeople' believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle... swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more colored people spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were...but it wasn't the 'jungled' blacks who brought themselves here [United States]; it was the jungled white folks who changed and altered them."

- Stamp Paid  (Page 235)

While reading Beloved, I came across this passage that really brings into perspective of both enslaved and free African Americans are treated as in the United States. In this passage, Stamp Paid is talking about how slavery in the United States has been corrupting and dehumanizing people. He states that African Americans are trying to get ahead in our society but are constantly bogged down by the history of their race sitting on their shoulders. One wrong move or action, and it reflects the entire race as a whole. This reflection has been imbedded into white people's minds that "under every dark skin is a jungle" which consists of "baboons and snakes" who are ready to hunt whites. 

Through the perspective of Stamp Paid and other African Americans, Toni Morrison does a good job at portraying some of the struggles they go through on a everyday basis. On my other blog post, I reaffirmed this perspective through analyzing how Sethe battles the challenge of just going into the town, but in the end how the community ends up supporting her. This "fear" of other races was set at a young age by either whites or older African Americans who experience pain and suffering in their life and then share the stories with their children. This disillusionment of whites has caused African Americans to live in fear everyday, but they lack the actual experience of facing their fears head on. Sethe was able to face her fears by running into Amy Denver, who contradicts all her previous experiences. 

Self-denial, doubt and lack of pride in who you are is prevalent in African Americans during this time period, and Stamp Paid gives a perfect example of this when he thought "every dark skin was a jungle of baboons and snakes" was right. Sounds like he is one of them who was changed by "the jungled white folk".

- Chris Herndon