Slavery And Motherhood In Toni Morrison's 'Beloved'
Slavery and Motherhood in Toni Morrison's "Beloved"Author(s): Terry Paul CaesarReviewed work(s):Source: Revista de Letras, Vol. 34 (1994), pp. 111-120Published by: UNESP Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita FilhoStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27666617 .Accessed: 20/01/2013 18:44Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at ms.jsp.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.UNESP Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Revista de Letras.http://www.jstor.orgThis content downloaded on Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:44:32 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
SLAVERYAND MOTHERHOODIN TONI MORRISON'SBELOVEDTerry Paul ctionsKEYWORDS:MorrisonMorrison'sas a critiqueAmericanandare consideredto feministliterature;theis discussedBelovedand motherhoodasnotconvertibleof the ties betweenlyric rhood;a presentationof slavery,but rather ofterms in order to show how Morrison'sCanonawardof the 1993 Nobel Prize to Toni Morrisonconfirms her status as ain Americanliterature. Her work has already earned a wide degreeof critical recognitionfor its sylistic brilliance and psychologicaldepth, as well as forits debt to ) or allyfiction will likely endure the fate of beingNow, as a Nobel Laureate, Morrison'stoo easily read as a testimonyto venerable pieties about human dignity and freedom.It is not my intention to provide such a reading here. Instead, Iwantto focus onThecanonicalMorrison'sof violence:authormostcelebratedbook, Beloved,in terms of its dramatizationof a singleactinfanticide.six novels are full of violence. Part of the price of her canonicalstatusthe oversimplificationof what exact issues are at stake in so much violence.The issues are not merely historical or racial. By focusing on infanticidein one specificnovel I hope to demonstratehow certain fundamentalconcernsof contemporarysuch as abortion and child abuse, have shaped the narrativein profoundfeminism,Morrison'shas beenIn addition,there seems to me a wholeimaginationboth its hope and its fears, that can only beencompassingcontext of slavery.ways.1 English Department-Clarion UniversityRev. Let., S?o Paulo, 34: 111-120,-Clarion-Pa. 16214-being a mother,therepresented withinaboutUSA.1994This content downloaded on Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:44:32 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions111
issubjectivity. WhatFinally, Iwant to explain Beloved as a reading of maternala mother?to be divided against herself? WhatDoes motherhoodcompel a womanstatus as adoes the representationof a mother as a slave reveal about any mother'sfeminist theorists rather thansubject in her own right? Iwill draw on contemporaryhistorians of slavery in order to discuss this last question. Morrison'splace in the canonof Americanliterature must not be allowed to obscure the disturbing provocationsofthe feminist text in her work, or to neglect how this text is enriched by the study ofher work.asMothersSlavesSpeaking of Belovedas follows:writesin herbook, The Mother/DaughterPlot, Mariannetries to explain to Beloved why she cut heran anger handed down through generationsof mothers whothroat, she is explainingcould have no control over their children'snoinvoicetheirlives,(1989,upbringing"in other words,is not merely writingthat Morrisonaboutp. 196). Hirsch suggests,Hirschrecent"When SetheThen in terms of motherhoodslavery, or slave mothers.why write aboutto go further and consider motherhoodthe first place? Iwantand slaveryterms.convertibleslavery inas in factthis equivalencein the great text of slavery in AmericanoperatesPreciselyCabin.ofthenovel will recall, for example,UncleTom'sReadersthe figureliterature,of Cassy, Simon Legree's quadroon mistressof five years, who confessesto Tom thatshe gave laudanum to her third child, a son by her second white master,in order tospare him from slavery. The process whereby Cassy is, by the end of the novel, restoredto her motherhoodto daughterhoodis too complicatedtothrough being subjectedpursue in this paper.2 The important thing is how the central reality of parent to childreassertsitself by transformingthe model of slave to master.In the sentimentalGilliandiscussion,Brownthis transformationis whollyIn an importantgood.asconcludesfollows about Uncle Tom's Cabin:"Stowenovelrelation with the benign proprietorshipto child,of motherof slaves to the mothersof America"(1984, p.518). Implicittransferring the ownershipin the logic wherebyand slavery can function as substitutesmotherhoodfor eachother is another logic having to do with mothersand daughtersequally being figuresof mutual substitution;after all, every mother is, or was, also a daughter. As dramatizedin the case of infanticide,is not benign.this logic, however,replacesthe master-slave2 Cassy is last seen with little Eliza, the daughter of George and Eliza Harris, and we read that "her love seemedto flow more naturally to the little Eliza than to her own daughter;for she was the exact image and body of theachild whom she had lost (Stowe, 1981, p.607)." By the girl's example, Cassy is transformed and she becomesdevout Christian. Of course the child she had "lost" was a boy, which only makes the mother'sbond with herchild moreinescapable,as if it has to be fully confirmedby a daughter112as self-enclosedand self-perpetuating.Rev. Let., S?o Paulo,This content downloaded on Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:44:32 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions34: 111-120,1994
context of slavery, Cassy can be comIndeed, in the highly overdeterminedas being enslaved by little Eliza (whose own prototypeis Little Eva, herselfprehendeda mother-daughter).In Beloved,in manySimilarly, so is Sethe by Beloved.respectsan updating of the sentimentalmore overtly theitseetofarbecomesnovel,possibleenactmentof certain fears and desires only latent in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Ifmotherhoodcan feel she is, exactly,a slave to herand slavery are equatable,then a motherasa daughter can to her mother. Furthermore,a mother can conceivablyjustdaughter,kill a child in order to protect her own self-possession,she feels enslaved bybecauseshe would save the child from slavery.her, and not only becauseIn Stowe,a selflesssuch terrible feelingsare containedof onovel.the"AmconceptionShelby early- aI not a womannoismother"Therebetweendissonance(1981, p.87).being aawomanand beingBrown puts the symmetry very well:mother.Stowe'sidentificationof maternalof domesticpower with God in her modeleconomyrejectsto ownershipthe motherlyfunctionsof reproductionand preservation,aspirationbeyondan economywithoutmarketsand a life devoid of problemscaused by masculinedesire.suggestingany(1984, p.518)InMorrison,there are profound differencesbetweenhowever,being a womanand being a mother. For one thing, there is the questionof masculinedesire. Sethe isthe central problem,infrightened when Paul D asks her to have his baby. Perhapson the part of a mother-to-befact, is the lack of the very selflessnessthat Stowe takesfor granted.Sethe responds to Paul D's request by thinking thus: "Needing to be goodalertthat caring - again. Havingto stay alive justenough,strong enough,enough,that muchwaslonger. O Lord, she thought, deliver me. Unless carefree, motherlovea killer." (Morrison, 1987, p.132)The prominenceof Sethe's distinctivelymaternalthe strucsubjectivity makestural economyof the motherand daughterless insulatedfromappear less closed,moreandtovulnerableitsfemale systemslavery,ravages. Gone is the self-regulatingof Uncle Tom's Cabin. In Beloved being a slave so profoundlycontaminatesbeing amotherthat the two becomevirtually inseparable."Freeing yourself was one thing",of that freed self was another" (p.95). The most"claiming ownershipimportant thing she has to free herself from in the novel is her subjection to motherhooditself, in the person of her daughter, Beloved.Few actual slave mothersinfanticide.3 As Belovedappear to have committedreflectsSethe,representsit, the actionover whetherthe motherchild.of"InMorrison'sindividuationandis horriblynovel,the economysubject-formation,"3 See Genoveseby slavesexacerbatedin fact kills her child(1974), especially p.497, whereas murder.themselvesRev. Let., S?o Paulo, 34: 111-120,1994with despair, fatigue, and confusionin order to save herself rather than herof slavery circumscribesnot only the processstates Hirsch,"but also heightensandhe notesthat maternal murder wasan exceptional113This content downloaded on Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:44:32 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditionsaction,recognized
It raisesand separation.of connectionthe experienceof out(1989).giveaway"questionsan exploration of what itmeansfor Sethe to "own" herself as a functionnovel becomesintensifiesof disowninga daughter.Daughtersas DisruptionWhatanswered,traditionalsubstituteis alreadyis a daughter? AlthoughBeloved herself insists that the questionandin a world wherethe family is destroyed,Beloved poses the herself,familydaughter,ato Mrs. Garner after she had lost Baby Suggs.ofsubstitute,presentedSethe spoke to her real motherMoreover,only once and never got to check for themark by whichshe might have been able to recognize her after she was hung.Indeed, Sethe is in effect "thrown" to whitesjust as she's told her own motherto their death except Sethe herself. Sethe's own infanticidein a novelThis is one of manyis prefiguredrepetitionsby that of her own mother.as if at once to expressthe need forhaunted by patterns,cycles, and symmetries,some conventionalits lack. There is Halle, for example,"moreform and to discloseto hislike a brother than a husband"(p.25) to Sethe, equally a sort of husband-motherthrew all her own childrenown motherof his("born" into freedom becausean infant-husbandwhen he witnessesincoherentlytation of Sethe(not, I think, withoutdesirefive years of Sabbathlabor), and.the specifically maternal molesto suckfrom her himself,andso he"breaks").is almost a mockery where nature has becomeis a daughter? The questionthe SchoolAt one point, trying to discuss with Mrs. Garner somethingSethe hears still another word,teacher had said about "characteristics,""features,"is a feature. A thing that'swhich Mrs. Garner defines thus for her: "A characteristicfeatures have been fractured from prototypesnatural to a thing" (p. 195), But inBelovedWhatdeformed.enable them to be whatmany of thethey normally are. Consequently,the sex betweenwhetherinterpretativeproblems of the novel become undecidableor whether Denver rescues Sethe from Beloved moreis incestuous,Paul D and Belovedas a daughtertheIn a text where all naming is arbitrary or accidental,than a mother.that mightan impossiblyinfantile senescencevery name "Grandma Baby" discloseseverywhere,of life yoked bywith generationsbled into each other, and the ends and beginningsviolencetogether.in order to assert a principleto intervene with her own violenceBeloved attemptsown child. But in a world of slavery, the poweris her mother'sof stability: a daughterbeats Sixto "to show him thatSchoolteacherof naming itself iswith the slaveowners.is annot the defined" (p. 190). Who defines whomdefinitionsbelong to the definersis free to define theand neither mother nor daughterin Beloved,obsessivequestion114Rev. Let., S?o Paulo,This content downloaded on Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:44:32 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions34: 111-120,1994
terms of their mutualouter violencea motherwhatof each other becauseeach has been formed by thepossessionit seems, gets to definethat disrupts their relation. Not even a daughter,is.farmore powerfullythan a father or a communityInstead, a daughter defineswhat a mother hasn't been. The first wordsin the novel are not words but "venom."Belovedthe words of and foris, in one sense, a gradual enunciativespace in which-venomcometo be spoken. Beloved'sin the book,emotionthe mostlyrepresentsfeeling for her motherand althoughit can be, and is, emplotted,it'sisweIfnarrativetheexpressed.again compareexcessivesheerlynever entirely clear preciselysentimentalnovel, Beloved'swhatclaim to her mother would be love. But this is only soof parent to child has been based on "the fundamentalsocialthat is, of the correct moral relation of the strong to the weak"example of compassion,so spitefully,so(Fisher, 1985, p.102).4 Would Beloved have returned so nInstead, it seemsor even manifestThe mostto me,she returns as a daughterwhonevergotto defineher love,it.wecan concludeis that Beloved'snarrative can't be separatedfromfor Paul D, she thinks asblanker, baffled one. At one point, cookingfollows: "There was no question but that she could do it. sure enough, she had milkfor all" (p. 100). The novel is saturated by a mother'senoughguilt for not having hadlife with whichto nurture life andenough milk for her children, as well as sjustconvergesenoughneed, and in erevenge.Sethe'sownJust so, the story of the greater violence of slavery withoutthe violence within."I guessthey rather be killing menreflects Denver about her motherin her monologue,"and thereher that makesit all right to kill her own" (p.205). The violenceableismadeindistinguishthan killing women,"sure is somethinginwithinfails to clarifythis "something" might be. Sethe reflects as follows in her own monologue:"Myis" (p.203). Suicide?plan was to take us all to the other side where my own ma'am- aInfanticide? What name can we give such a plan? Whoseitstory authorizescare or a daughter'smother'sneed?whatOr to put the questionanother way: who has the powerinto life? Barbara Johnson has a fascinatingessay on theliterature. She terms it to be apostrophe,the only one suitablelife and dialogueof somethingabsent, mute, or dead. However,be designedfor a context inwhich the questionsimplicit in thebackwhena motherassumesspeaksresponsibility4 Fisher goes on to explainsocial modelfor relationsdon't haveto worryRev. Let., S?o Paulo,aboutof or to her abortedfor producingthat the importancebetweenchild.the death1994the dead"What happens when the lyric speakerin the first place," writes Johnson,"butof the family to the sentimentalnovel is that it providesthe onlymembers, we might say, like children or slaves, whojust because some of them have none.non-equal memberstheir lack of definitional power34: 111-120,to summon"figure" for abortion infor the conjuringintothis figure may notliteral,figure are made115This content downloaded on Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:44:32 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
that existed in the entitysure of the precise degree of human animationweonInotherhavethe opposite question:thehand,Beloved,(1986, p.32).what happens whenthe "entity" herself summons herself into being? Can the deadtheir own power over the living?commandwithoutbeingkilled?"In a lyric such questions might not be so crucial. In a narrative they are. Aboutat one point: "each of these poemsthe abortion poems she treats, Johnson commentsaexistschildbecausedoesnot"exists,(1986, p.36). In contrast, eBeloved exists; the "body" of thebody. Butaischildnot the sameif no one has apostrophizedBeloved back into life (for murderedas an abortedinhabitswithoutone), then how does she come to be? The question of how the daughteris the questionof how a character can inhabit a textthe life of the motherof a figure.her own plot, and only the negativeas Pre-SymbolicMothersis watchingSethe and Beloved yet again.the end of the novel Denvera closed circuit; nothing she does has any influence.somefalls quiet, "Sethe got her going again. Whispering,When nBelovedofexplainjustification,clarifyingTowardShe realizesthat both constitutelike, and why, and how come. Itwas as though Sethe didn't really want forgivenessit refused. And Beloved helped her out" (p.252). Why does Belovedgiven; she wantedanswerexist? Themay be that she has never ceased to exist, at least as somethingare here, once again, two parts of the sameand daughter"outside" Sethe. Motherthe other into existence.and therefore one could never have apostrophizeda conspiratorialonenessthatOn the contrary, mother and daughter demonstratethat "there is somethinghas reached across the grave. No wonderJohnson observesand death that refuses to remain comforbetween motherhoodabout the connectionbeing,for this reason, whatfigurative" (1986, p.38). Yet, preciselytably and conventionallythat it hasIwant to suggestthis "something"is proves to be immensely provocative.based on the model of a woman'sto do with the origins of human subjectivity,givingbirth. Earlier, Denver goes to ask a neighbor for some food, because her mother doesn'tfeel so good.did not knowinaugurated"Oh, baby," the neighborreplies, "Oh, baby." Then we read thus:wasit then, but itthe word,'baby,' said softly with such kindness,her life in the world as a woman"(p.248)."Shethata narrative for aitmakes possibleWhy is this word an inaugural one? BecauseThat is, the narrative is notrather than autonomy.human being, based on pregnancy"wants to put his storya masculinefor instance, by Paul D, whoone, as represented,saidhassheof Beloved,andtoafter"She waswhonext to hers [Sethe],"her,repliesmy best thing," as follows: "You are your best thing, Sethe. You are" (p.273). Paul D'slogic116is thelogicof growth,singularity,autonomy.Behindit lies a veritableRev. Let., S?o Paulo,This content downloaded on Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:44:32 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions34: 111-120,1994
of humanfor example,famousselfhood,evoked,metaphysicsby Kierkegaard'sdictum:his own father." But this metaphysics"He who does the work becomeshaseffaced women.Their work is the work of mothers,or separationbased on relationand loss. "Me? Me?"is all Sethe can utter in reply to Paul D.In Beloved what a womanis has becomelost in what a motheris,hopelesslyand what a motheris has become haplesslyinwhat a child is. Perhaps theentangledmost chilling image presented"Sethe no longerthrough Denver's eyes is the following:combed her hair or splashed her face with water.She sat in the chair licked her lipslike a chastisedchild while Beloved ate up her life, took it, swelled up with it, grewtaller on it. Anda murmur"the older womanyielded it up without(p.250). The childis father of the man,in the well-knownWordsworthianformula. But here, since thechild is a girl, she is the mother of the mother, with whomshe is pregnant. Whatisa motherin this scene but a prototypeto be incorporatedrather than a being to beloved?Hirschputs the question very directly upon which so much of the novel is based:or definition of subjectivity might be derived from a theory that beginswith mothersrather than with children?"to begin with the(1989, p. 197). In Belovedis to discovermotherthat one ends where one began: as a baby - fearful, dependent,to one's own baby. In this sense, the "inaugural" momentsatedthat Denver wastold about is the momentof foreclosure: a motheris convertableinto a baby, and whatobtains for a womanis to await the conversion."What modelMuch current feminist theory celebratesthis moment.It co
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