Critical lens

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical lens: Feminist

Impressively enough “Slavery and Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’” by Terry Paul Caesar is being seen in the Feminist lens. This Lens is able to give a more meaning to what women rather than their skin color. These authors were able to conclude that the reason why She acted the way she did towards her kids was due to fear. They beloved Morrisons view was going more towards human dignity and freedom.

Terry mentions that the only reason why She killed Beloved was because she didn't want her children to like a slave life. He starts “a mother can conceivably kill a child in order to protect her own self-possession because she feels enslave…. and not only because she would save the child from slavery.” From reading beloved Sethe didn't mean to kill Beloved purposely but because of the fact that she saw the white men coming she got frightened and did was she believed was right. Terry also expands on how there is a big difference between “being a women” and “being a mother”. A women is just a female who follows what they are told to do. However a mother has more responsibility they have to deal with guilt, fear, and weak. Terry put a great example. He said that when Paul D asked Sethe to have a baby with him, She freaked and just thought about how of a mother she was. In fact I do not agree with her being a bad mother. I feel like she did was she felt was right and that was protecting her kids. She also had 2 kids that ran away, and did not want her 2 other kids to be taken away. What Terry came to conclude was that being a Slave mother, makes a mother react a different way due to the fact they want to protect them. He disagrees with what Morrison and how much she dramatize what a mother is.

In beloved  we can not really see how Morrison made Sethe look like a bad mother. Yet if we pay really close attention to how much repetition she put on Sethe when killing Beloved. Terry’s image of what a mother is, gives a true understanding that a mother will protect her kids. A mother will try to do their very best to not let anything awful happen to their children. A mother is like a Lion, they will fight and kill their cubs and if it means hurting one then it was for a good cause. Being a mom is not easy especially if you have a ugly history behind you.