Sethe's Crime. Maybe.

Reading about the truth of the crawling already? baby's death (finally) came as a bit of a shock. It made me see Sethe differently, although not quite as differently as one might think after hearing that she murdered her baby daughter. The circumstances surrounding the murder made me feel more pity for Sethe, rather than see her as conniving and evil. In fact, I felt like this was the scene in which we as readers were able to understand Sethe the best. Having not had much of the novel from her point of view, it was she committed this act of love and desperation that we were most able to get inside her head and understand what the heck is going on with her. Up until this point, I saw Sethe as a pretty warm, open and friendly person, though I knew she a dark past. It was very confusing trying to figure out how these two aspects of her character fit together, and the conclusion that I came to was that her friendly personality was a mask for a crazed maniac that was bottled up in her innards. But it turned out to be almost the opposite: her past actions proved her to be more loving than she ever acted after The Misery. In all honesty, her split-second decision to protect her children at all costs was extremely impressive, if unexpected in the interpretation of "protection." But I see her point of view. Those children would never have a hope of escaping Schoolteacher's cruelty once they were in his grasp, because there was something about them that he could not forgive: they must have injured his pride by successfully escaping. He must have wanted them back at all costs. I feel that, were they to return to Sweet Home he would be harder on them than the slaves who were used to the "light touch" of the Garners.

Yet, making such a decision must have been incredibly difficult. In a way, Sethe is kind of a hero. She was able to complete an utterly self-sacrificing and altruistic act, and decide to do so in a split second without thinking twice about what it would do to her emotionally, and how it would affect her for the rest of her life. She suffered as a result: her baby was gone, and she would be forever ostracized by those who knew the truth. Yet, even through this, I think I respect her, because she is a very "no regrets" kind of person. She feels no guilt over what she did, and would do it again. It. Cutting off her two-year-old daughter's head. That's hard to say. But she would do it again. It saved her other children and their freedom, and no one would ever be able to touch Beloved. She loved those babies so much that she make damn sure that no one would ever hurt them or break them the way they did her, the Pauls, Sixo, and especially Halle. If possible, reading this scene makes me like Sethe more than I ever did before, because I don't think many people would have the strength to do what she did. Of course, this is completely messing with my head because I am rooting for a baby-killer, but her circumstances left her no other option.