Second Hand Trauma In Beloved

The moral ambiguity surrounding the nature and reasoning behind Sethe’s murder of her child throws the community’s treatment of Sethe into question and pulls the atrocities of slavery and each character’s plight into the light. This dichotomy between both right and wrong helps redefine Sethe’s love and identification of herself by her children.

She wanted answers for all the wrong that she had experienced. She wanted redemption for all the mistakes she had made. She wanted to go back and change it all. Sethe had so many emotions toward her past that every day would weigh her down more and more. Even worse for Sethe, she didn’t have anyone there to help her carry her weight. She may have had people around her, but she had no strong, real relationship with anyone in the novel. She had a handful of children she had no clue how to raise, she had a father she didn’t know, a mother who was absent, a husband who was gone and who was more like a bother to her anyways like she said, “Halle was more like a brother than a husband. His care suggested a family relationship rather than a man's laying claim.” (2.16), and children she did not know how to raise. Mostly because she couldn’t trust anyone. Sethe could never talk about what she was feeling. She never had an outlet

After all that happened with her involving her baby Beloved, Like Caruth’s expresses, Sethe couldn’t get past her trauma because she didn’t have access to it. No one spoke to Sethe about what she did and that resulted in her never coming to terms with what she did which could’ve abled her to move on and put it behind her. That is, until Paul D arrives which results in Sethe regaining all the memories of the past and what she did to Beloved. As her love for him grows, so does the love and memory of her daughter. From Caruth’s theory, Paul D’s presence bringing back such memories shows exactly the lack of consciousness that Sethe had with that memory.

In this chapter, we learn that Sethe was already pregnant with Denver when she ran away from Sweet Home. By the time when Sethe collapsed her feet in the woods, a white girl Amy Denver had found Sethe. Due to Sethe’s fear about Sweet Home, she told Amy Denver a false name- “Lu”, because if she were caught, she would be returned to Sweet Home, and she would continue experiencing her previous painful daily life again. Amy Denver helps Sethe by massaged her feet and release her pain. Later, Sethe gave birth to her baby successfully with Amy’s help and Sethe also naming the child after Amy Denver.

Sethe understands that her history, filled with the pain of slavery, grief over losing her children, and guilt over Beloved's death, and tries to hide from all the anguish. However, she admits that the past seems to "always be there waiting," thereby emphasizing the idea that past horrors of life continue to haunt forever. It appears as though the power of her experience in slavery influences her so greatly that the memory triggers great pain, causing the horrifying incidents to "happen again." Even though Sethe understands that she cannot ever fully escape her history as it will come back to trouble her, she still tries to avoid them and thus attempts to shield her daughter from the horrors of history: "As for Denver, the job Sethe had of keeping her from the past that was still waiting for her was all that mattered" (45). It seems as though Sethe tries to deny the fact that history does not simply disappear. She still tries to protect Denver "from the past" even though history "waits," prepared to cause trouble and inflict the pain Sethe tries to repress. It appears as though Sethe continuously tries to fight against her memories and ignore her past in part one. For example, after she wakes, she begins "Working dough. Working, working dough. Nothing better than that to start the day's

Sethe lives in the shadow of her act of infanticide throughout the entire length of the book. This is because its legacy pervades itself throughout the entire novel, showing events leading up, and ways the future has been affected. The novel begins as such: “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. (Page 1)” This baby refers to Beloved, who became a ghostly presence in Sethe’s house and continuously terrorizes the house

Later in Seth’s life, a fully grown woman named Beloved showed up at 124 which is Seth’s home. Sethe believed that Beloved was her daughter that come back from the afterlife. Sethe felt like she could tell Beloved, what happened and all would be well in Beloved’s heart. In the novel Sethe said, “ When I explain it she’ll understand”(Morrison 210). If Sethe had made the decision not to kill her baby, she would not have to worry about explaining her actions.

 Sethe learned the value of motherhood from an early age.  Not wanting the children of the white men that raped her, Sethe?s mother, Ma?am (as she is called in the book), threw all the unwanted children away.  But, Sethe?s father was a black man whom Ma?am loved, and so she kept Sethe.  Recalling the story, Sethe thinks back on what Nan (the woman who knew Sethe?s mother and raised Sethe, herself) said, ?She threw them all away but you.  The one from the crew she threw away on the island.  The others from more whites she also threw away.  Without names, she threw them.  You she gave the name of the black man? (Morrison, 62).  Thus having an identity because of her mother, ?Sethe learns Ma?am?s history and grounds her personality in motherly-love? (Kubitcheck 123).  Kubitcheck also says, ?mother-love offers the strongest defense against slavery.  When Nan tells Sethe that her Ma?am chose to conceive and bear her, Sethe acquires the base on which to build feelings of self-worth? (135).  She could also identify with her mother by the mark branded below Ma?am?s

Through character development, the story also portrays the theme of escaping the past. Sethe’s actions are influenced heavily by her dead child, Beloved. When the “human” form of Beloved arrives while sleeping

The house they lived in, 124, once was a place of worship and happiness for former slaves, but after the killing the house becomes a place of sadness and death. This happens because Sethe’s dead child, Beloved, is a spiritual representation of the historical and intergenerational traumas they are all forced to remember. “the over incarceration of African Americans, and the un- or under punished killings of African American are part of the effects and evolution of historical trauma.” (Coyle) Relating to the novel Beloved, Coyle explains the harsh realities of the effects of slavery that we still see today. The evolution of historical trauma shows that a lot of these problems, like the ones Sethe worried about for her children, are still prevalent yet formed differently today and are less severe today. “Historical trauma is related to a genocide of a people, where some major event is aimed at a particular group because of their status as an oppressed group,” (Jacobs). Especially in the past, African Americans were an oppressed group. Sethe did not want her child to go through

“Just as we can live as we wish, we ought to be able to die as we wish, too.” (Mill) and for Beloved she did not wish to die as she did. Sethe had no right to take a life of an innocent baby by slicing her throat. How can a mother even think about murdering her own flesh and blood? But then again what do I know about being a slave and a mother?

Sethe says she believes she won't even have to explain her motives for killing her (a love so great she can't let her be taken into a life of slavery). "I don't have to remember nothing," Sethe tells herself on page 183. "I don't even have to explain. She understands it all." Sethe believes the one true way she will find restitution and understanding with Beloved, is by knowing the mark she has left on her daughter. "I only need to know one thing. How bad is the scar?" Sethe feels that by knowing the scar, by touching the "memory of a smile under her chin," she can feel her daughter's pain and connect with her.

Sethe divulged to Paul D the catastrophic events that caused her to run away from Sweet Home, and then she surrendered her sons and daughter to a woman in a wagon because she was worried about the family’s future under the Schoolteacher’s reign. Her description of the assault was straight forward. She told Paul D and very succinctly the roughness and cruelty of those white people especially the two white boys who beat her while she was pregnant with Denver injuring her so badly that her back skin had been dead for years. She refers to the situation as

Sethe overly loved her children because they were one of the few things that were free in her life. Her love was also a conduit to pay off the guilt that she felt from killing Beloved and attempting to kill the rest of her young. She harbors the most guilt from Beloved’s death, so once she reappears Sethe directs most of herself to that daughter. The feelings of remorse make her dependent on Beloved, corrupting the previously strong woman essentially a slave waiting on all of Beloved’s whims. Sethe is unable to leave the relationship because of the guilt, but she cannot come clean of it until she comes to terms with herself, leaving her in an unending cycle of emotional deterioration until the women of the community drive Beloved, the source of her issues,

 When Sethe finally arrives at 124 Bluestone Road, she is greeted with her loving mother-in-law, Jenny Whitlow, known to her as Baby Suggs.  A second healing takes place when Baby Suggs tends to her mutilated body.  “She led Sethe to the keeping room and bathed her in sections, starting with her face…Sethe dozed and woke to the washing of her hands and arms…When Sethe’s legs were done, Baby looked at her feet and wiped them lightly.  She cleaned between Sethe’s legs…”(Morrison, 93).  The methodical washing of Sethe’s body emphasizes the sympathy and love that fills Baby Suggs’ heart.  Putting her trust in Baby Suggs for the relief of physical and emotional torment, is the only way Sethe is able to relieve herself of her haunted past and suffering body.  Baby Suggs knows as well as Sethe, the haunting miseries of black men and women who have been brought low by slavery, yet she urges her daughter-in-law to keep going and be strong.